At least 18 people have been killed and 19 injured in a fire at a hotel in China’s north-eastern city of Harbin, according to state media.

It was the latest in a series of deadly blazes in the country which has been trying to improve public safety over the past two decades.

The fire broke out at the four-storey Beilong Hot Spring hotel in Harbin’s Sun Island resort area, according to an employee of the city emergency office who would give only his surname, Wang.

It started at about 4.30am and was extinguished at 7.50am by a force of 105 firefighters with 30 fire engines, state television reported.

Video on its social media account showed firefighters spraying water on the blackened hotel while fire engines and ambulances stood in the tree-lined street.

Sixteen people were found dead and two more died in hospital, the provincial fire department said on its social media account. It said 19 people had been injured and 70 evacuated.

The cause of the fire was under investigation, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The ruling Communist party has tried to improve fire safety following deadly blazes at hotels, shopping malls and apartment buildings, but major incidents still occur.

A fire blamed on faulty wiring in a Beijing apartment building killed 19 people in November last year, and a blaze in a Shanghai apartment tower killed at least 58 people in 2010. Authorities blamed sparks from a welding torch.