2 dead, 2 injured in South China fire

Two people have died and two others were seriously injured in a fire that engulfed a bank and a residential building in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Wednesday, local authorities said. The fire broke out at around 6 a.m. in a three-storey building of an Industrial and Commerical Bank of China (ICBC) outlet in Hepu County and a nearby residential building, said the publicity department of the county committee of the Communist Party of China. The bank has a floor space of 600 square meters, while the house has about 300 square meters, it  said. It did not identify the victims. The blaze has been extinguished but the bank has suffered heavy losses, the publicity department said. It said the second and third floors of the bank's building were leased to local store owners and were stacked with straw mats and other combustible materials. The cause of the fire is under investigation.