BEIJING Firework accidents have injured hundreds of people across China during the celebration of the traditional lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, which began on January 24, local media reported on Thursday.

In the southern city of Guangzhou, a handhold firework known as the "Tornado" injured more than 100 people, leaving 35 people with missing fingers and 48 with eye injuries, 11 of them facing possible blindness, the sina.com Website said.

Some 80 percent of the Tornado's victims were boys around 10 years old, the Website said.

Fire officers in the northern province of Hebei dealt with more than 350 fires over the holiday period, 95 percent of them caused by fireworks, including 153 fires on January 23-24, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

After the eastern province of Anhui partially lifted a five-year ban on fireworks this year, emergency services in the provincial capital of Hefei were called to 54 fires over the New Year holiday, the agency said.

Firework accidents have killed or injured at least 20 people so far this year in Hefei's Feidong county alone, it said.

In Anqing City, Anhui Province, a "monkey going to heaven" firework misfired into a firework shop, igniting stored fireworks and killing an entire family, it said.

Spot checks by state inspectors over spring festival found only 14 of 36 types of firework sold by dealers met quality standards, the official ****China Daily**** said.

The high failure rate was because illegal factories produced many of the fireworks, the newspaper said.

Random checks in firework factories found only 51 percent of 49 products examined met standards, it said.

In the mid-1990s many cities banned fireworks, but the bans were unpopular and some cities later lifted them.

The government has tried to encourage more people to attend public firework displays and has closed small, illegal factories, shutting 14,000 in 1999, state media said.

The main spring festival holiday period ended on Tuesday but Chinese people normally continue to set off fireworks until the 15th day of the New Year, which this year is February 7.

(DPA)