Explosion in Chinese port city kills 2, injures 30
An explosion in a port city south of Shanghai on Sunday killed two people and injured at least 30 others, knocked down buildings
and left streets littered with damaged cars and debris, the government and news reports said.
The early morning explo- sion struck a riverfront neigh- borhood in Ningbo, one of China’s busiest ports, the official Xinhua News Agency and other outlets reported.
Firefighters traced the blast to a hole in the ground where a toilet had been but the cause still was under investigation, state televi- sion said on its website. It gave no indication whether the explosion site was inside a building. Two people were killed
and two more seriously injured, the district office
announced on its social media account. It gave no details.
At least 30 others were taken to hospitals, accord- ing to Huanqiu.com, a website operated by the Global Times newspaper.
China suffers frequent deadly fires and industrial accidents, often blamed on negligence.
Official safety crackdowns have improved conditions in some areas, but many companies still cut corners. In 2015, an explosion traced to improperly stored chem- icals killed at least 173 peo- ple in Tianjin, a port east of Beijing.
Sunday’s blast knocked down residential buildings, but they were vacant and in the process of being demol- ished, Huanqiu.com said. It
said there might have been people in the area collecting scrap for recycling.
Bystanders said the explosion might have been caused by a gas pipeline that was damaged during demolition work, but the Ningbo gas company said it had no lines in the area, the China Youth Daily newspaper reported on its website.
A photo on news.ifeng. com showed a room in an
industrial building with a floor-to-ceiling hole blown through an exterior wall. Other photos showed apartments with windows blown out and glass-littered floors.