Up to 20 people, including children, died in northern China when explosives stored in the home of a mine operator blew up near a school, local officials and state media said yesterday.
Press reports said at least 20 children died and the Beixinzhuang elementary school was badly damaged in the Wednesday afternoon blast in Huogou village, Shanxi Province.
However, the Communist Party secretary of Kecheng township, which governs the village, said only 10 people died.
"The latest confirmed figure is 10 dead, eight adults and two children," the secretary, surnamed Cao, said.
"The adults were all men and the two children were girls. Seven people have been injured. The owner of the explosives also died," he said.
A journalist from the local Shanxi Metropolitan Daily said police had cordoned off the area and were refusing to allow reporters near the school.
"It was a very small school, with only 17 to 18 students. Only a few students died. Nine students were injured," she said.
"The explosion killed many people in the homes around the blast," she said. She expressed concerns that local officials would seek to cover up the blast as it occurred just days ahead of the annual meeting of the National People's Congress in Beijing.
Traditionally, this is a politically sensitive time when the central government takes a dim view of local man-made disasters.
A businessman in Kecheng, who said he was a Communist Party member, also said he feared the local government could try to cover up the incident.
"Since this happened at a school, during the daytime, they can't cover it up as usual," he said, refusing to be named.
Officials from the Linfen City Government, the region's political center, had rushed to the village and were directing a police investigation into the cause of the accident, said Cao.
The explosives were being stored in the home of local mine operator, Lu Maolin, who died in the blast. Lu's wife was also injured, the Beijing News said.
Investigators have not ruled out the possibility of suicide, Cao said, but were waiting for the results of a full investigation.
Another Kecheng township official, who did not want to be named, said the toll was "in the teens," indicating it was somewhere between 10 and 20.
China has experienced a wave of deadly attacks, including stabbings and bombings, at schools in recent months, culminating in the shutting down of 10,000 kindergartens.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of