(Beijing) At least 31 people were killed by an explosion at a restaurant in the northwest Chinese city of Yinchuan on Wednesday night, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Thursday.
“A leak of liquefied petroleum gas […] caused an explosion while serving a barbecue restaurant,” the agency said, citing the regional committee of the Communist Party of China (CCP).
Seven other people are receiving treatment, one of them being in “critical condition”, Xinhua said.
Two other victims suffered severe burns, two others minor injuries, and another two were hit by shards of glass, according to the same source.
The explosion took place in the Fuyang barbecue restaurant, located in a residential area in downtown Yinchuan, the capital of the autonomous region of Ningxia.
It came on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival, a three-day celebration for which many Chinese gather with family and friends.
Footage from state-run CCTV showed more than a dozen firefighters at the scene battling smoke billowing through the gaping hole created by the blast. The street, which hosts other food and entertainment businesses, is blackened and strewn with debris.
Chinese President Xi Jinping demanded that all efforts be made in “taking care of the injured and strengthening safety supervision and management in key industries and sectors to effectively protect people’s lives and property.” “, CCTV reported Thursday.
The Ministry of Emergency Management told him that local fire and rescue services had dispatched more than 100 people and 20 vehicles to the scene in the aftermath of the explosion.
The local authorities reacted “immediately”, assured the ministry.
Relatively frequent incidents
In a video posted to social media, two shirtless men, their pants torn and their upper bodies covered in dust, are seen crouching dazedly in the middle of a crowded street littered with shards of glass.
Another clip shows fire engines and ambulances rolling into the streets around, all sirens blaring, flashing blue and red lights.
Other images on social media show dozens of people massed behind a security cordon on the other side of the same street, some visibly upset.
AFP was able to authenticate the location of these documents by comparing the buildings visible in these videos to those appearing in the official images, and these match.
These explosions and other fatal incidents are relatively common in China, where construction industry standards are often not met. In addition, unauthorized constructions are numerous there and can, for example in the case of a fire, make it difficult for people inside the building to escape.
In June in particular, three people died after a series of explosions caused by fireworks affected residential buildings in Tianjin (north).
At least 17 others were killed by a fire in a restaurant in Changchun (northeast) in September, according to a report then released by local authorities.
In January 2022, an explosion caused by a suspected gas leak in a canteen claimed the lives of more than a dozen people in Chongqing (southwest).
In June 2021, a gas explosion which ravaged a residential complex in Shiyan (center) killed 25 people.