At least 119 people have been killed in a fire at a poultry processing plant in the north-eastern province of Jilin in China, local authorities have confirmed.

According to the China Labour Bulletin, the fire started on Monday morning following a series of explosions at the Baoyuanfeng Poultry Plant in the Mishazi township of Dehui, a city with a population of around 900,000 people.

The fire was reported caused by an electrical fault, possibly triggered by the plant’s extensive plumbing.

State broadcaster China Central Television is also reporting that the fire may have been escalated by an ammonia leak.

Witnesses report hearing a bang followed by black smoke at around 06.00 when around 300 to 350 workers were on the site.

It took around six hours to put out the blaze and many workers were trapped inside the plant’s narrow network of passageways as the fire spread rapidly.

The front gate of the plant was reportedly locked or jammed shut at the time of the fire but around 100 employees managed to escape the fire, reports the China Labour Bulletin, and at least 54 were sent to local hospitals around Dehui for treatment.

The factory, which began operations in 2009, employs around 1200 people and produces 67,000 tonnes of meat annually which is sold across China, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Monday’s tragedy is one of the worst factory fires in recent Chinese history and the death toll has already exceeded that of the infamous Zhili Toy Factory fire in Shenzhen in 1993, which killed 87 young migrant women workers and injured 47 others.

Inadequate fire safety equipment, exits and training for workers are commonplace in China’s factories.

In the last six months, Bloomberg reports that workplace fires at a car wash, a clothing factory and an agricultural market have killed more than 20 people.

In 2012, the government ordered inspections of shopping centres, hotels, hospitals and other public venues following public outcry after a blaze in a downtown Shanghai apartment building killed more than 50 people.

The worst industrial accidents in China have been in the coal mining industry, with several disasters in the mid-2000s, which claimed the lives of more than one hundred miners.

China Labour Bulletin’s research report Bone and Blood: The Price of Coal in China has more details on the incident.