A powerful explosion yesterday hit China’s major port city of Ningbo, killing at least two people, injuring more than a dozen and wrecking buildings, authorities said.
Cars were twisted and mangled by the force of the blast, a plume of gray smoke rose in the sky and debris was scattered for dozens of meters.
However, there was no official word on its cause.
Photo: AFP
The Ningbo government said on a social media account that the blast occurred in a “vacant lot.”
Local authorities said two people died, two were seriously injured and an unidentified number were being treated for lesser injuries in one of China’s largest ports, just south of Shanghai.
State media said more than 30 people were taken to hospital.
The Xinhua news agency said the explosion happened in a demolished factory at about 9am.
A later statement by the city’s Jiangbei District, the scene of the blast, said 16 people were still being treated for minor injuries while an undisclosed number had left the hospital.
China Central Television said that no one else was believed to be trapped in the rubble.
Industrial accidents are common in China, where safety standards are often lax.
Aerial images posted on Twitter by the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily showed at least four wrecked buildings around a wasteland of debris.
Helmeted rescuers were seen carrying injured people away from the area, while others stood over a person lying on the ground.
Pieces of concrete, wood and glass were strewn across a wide area. Metal gates were twisted open and windows were blown out of buildings.
The explosion sent chunks of masonry flying around the area, where buildings were already being demolished, according to the Beijing newspaper Xinjing Bao.
The People’s Daily said on Twitter that no one lived at the scene, but garbage collectors might have been working there.
An inquiry has been launched to determine the cause of the explosion, the Jiangbei District police said on social media.
Ningbo is one of the country’s major international container shipping ports.
China has been rocked by several industrial accidents in recent years.
In 2015 giant blasts killed at least 165 people in the northern port city of Tianjin, causing more than US$1 billion in damage and sparking widespread anger at a perceived lack of transparency over the accident’s causes and its environmental effects.
A government inquiry into the Tianjin accident released in February last year recommended that 123 people be punished.
The official who was mayor at the time of the accident was in September sentenced to 12 years in prison for graft.
Huang Xingguo (黃興國), 62, had also headed the disaster response committee.
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