BEIJING — A predawn hotel fire killed at least 19 people on Saturday in a northeastern Chinese city just a day before an international marathon that attracts tens of thousands of visitors.

The blaze at the Beilong Hot Spring Hotel in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang Province, burned for more than three hours before it was extinguished at 7:50 a.m., the city government announced on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform. In addition to the 19 victims, 23 people were injured and sent to the hospital for treatment, it said.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.

There was no immediate word on whether the victims included any of the competitors in the race, the Harbin International Marathon, which draws up to 30,000 competitors and a similar number of fans from around the world.

The police in Harbin announced late Saturday afternoon that the marathon would go ahead as scheduled on Sunday morning.