BEIJING, China (AP) -- A fire at an illegal shoe factory in southeastern China killed 37 people and injured more than a dozen others, authorities said Monday.

The blaze started Sunday night in a workshop making shoe uppers and burned more than 520 square meters (about 5,560 square feet), the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing Zhu Qing, director of the information office of the Fujian provincial government.

There were 56 workers in the factory at the time, said a woman surnamed Zhou in the information office of the Putian city Communist Party committee. Besides the 37 dead, 19 were being treated at hospitals, she said.

The Feida Shoe Upper Manufacturing Workshop was operating without a license, which was revoked in 2004 because of safety violations. Authorities found the factory illegally combined work, storage and living areas, Zhou said.

Owner Huang Shubin and her husband Chen Zongfei were detained by police, Zhou said.

A woman in the publicity department of Putian's Public Security Bureau confirmed the blaze and said it likely started when an electric wire caught fire.

A deputy director of the State Administration of Work Safety went to Fujian to head an investigation, agency spokeswoman An Yuanjie said.