BEIJING: At least 17 people were injured after an explosion rocked a residential area in northern China’s Shanxi province, creating clouds of smoke and shattering glass in nearby buildings, state media reported on Wednesday (Apr 30).
The blast occurred at around 5.17am GMT (1.17pm, Singapore time) in Shanxi’s Taiyuan city, state broadcaster CCTV said, without giving the cause of the incident.
Footage circulating on Chinese social media Weibo, unverified by Reuters, appeared to show several vehicles engulfed in flames outside a building, with dense smoke pouring from the cars and some residential windows.
A total of 210 firefighters and 43 fire trucks were deployed to the scene, CCTV said. China’s Ministry of Emergency Management dispatched a working group to guide rescue operations, and ordered floor-by-floor searches to verify the number of people trapped in the building.
The explosion came just a day after a restaurant fire in northeastern China’s Liaoning province killed 22 people. President Xi Jinping described the incident as “a deeply sobering lesson” and urged local officials to do all they could to prevent major safety accidents.
Liaoning authorities said on Wednesday the exact cause for the fire remained under investigation, but they had ruled out a gas explosion or arson, CCTV reported.
Initial analysis suggests the victims trapped inside the restaurant probably died of suffocation after breathing a large amount of toxic gas as the fire spread rapidly through highly flammable furnishings and decorative materials, CCTV said.
The latest incidents follow a spate of similar accidents across China in recent years. Earlier in April, 20 people were killed in a fire that broke out in an apartment for the elderly at a nursing home in the northern province of Hebei.
