The death toll from a fire that broke out Monday at a lithium battery production plant in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province has climbed to 22.

According to fire authorities, 20 of the killed were foreigners, including 18 Chinese, one Laotian and one yet unknown; two were Korean. At least eight other people were also injured, including two who sustained serious injuries. 

Search and rescue operations continued as one person remained unaccounted for.

Authorities said the main fire was extinguished at around 3:10 p.m., adding that efforts are still under way to put out residual flames.  

The blaze is said to have started on the second floor of one of the eleven concrete steel buildings in the plant that sits on a plot of land measuring some 55-hundred square meters.  

Authorities said firefighters faced difficulty in the early stages of extinguishing the fire as lithium was stored in the building that caught fire. 

Fire authorities deployed 159 personnel and 63 firefighting equipment. 

The labor ministry has set up an industrial accident response headquarters and is assisting firefighting efforts.