53 people died when fire swept through the shopping mall

The Xinhua news agency said a 35-year-old man had been arrested for dropping the cigarette blamed for starting the blaze in a five-storey shopping mall.

More than 70 people were injured in the fire, many of them firemen.

Another fire on the same day killed 40 people in a village temple in Zhejiang province in eastern China.

Both fires have prompted the authorities to launch a campaign to improve safety standards.

Xinhua named the man detained in Jilin as Yu Hongxin and described him as a "criminal suspect".

He worked in a storeroom where the fire broke out.

Safety

A man has also been detained in connection with the second fire which burned down a bamboo temple in Zhejiang province.

He has been accused of building the temple illegally. Burning incense was blamed for starting that fire.

Xinhua said that the new safety campaign would encourage increased spending on safety measures and raise awareness of fire prevention.

"Coal mines, public transport vehicles, construction sites, schools and other public venues are the major targets of this anti-accidents campaign," Wang Xianzheng, director of the State Administration of Work Safety, was quoted as saying.

A BBC correspondent in Beijing, Louisa Lim, says the fact that senior leaders are chairing meetings on the safety issue shows the depth of concern.

She says public outrage is growing over a series of preventable deaths.