China's state prosecutor said yesterday that it has approved the detention of the former head of the work safety regulator, sacked after blasts that killed more than 160 people in Augus in the northern port city of Tianjin. Yang Dongliang was removed as director of the State Administration of Work Safety shortly after the massive Augus explosions in a warehouse in Tianjin, a city not far from the capital, Beijing. The prosecutor said that it had approves the taking of "coercive measure" against Mr Yang, a term that generally denotes detention and marks the next step in the legal process before a court case.