BEIJING, CHINA: A man was detained in China's Gansu province for spreading rumors of a major fire on a microblog.
The netizen, Zheng, was detained for eight days, reported People's Daily.
Zheng published fabricated information on his microblog and claimed that a fire that broke out on Dec 7 killed 100 people.
The blog caused widespread concern.
Though a fire did take place on Dec 7 in Yinpingzhai village, it was quickly extinguished without casualties.
Zheng, 19, who is from Yinpingzhai, searched on the Internet and found information about a fire in Hong Kong. He then used it on his microblog to increase hits, the media report said.