Two people were killed and over two dozen more were injured in northern China on Wednesday when a suspected gas leak blew out the front of a multistory building and caused its partial collapse.
Authorities in Yanjiao, a town in the city of Sanhe in northern Hebei province, said first responders reported mostly minor injuries to 26 victims, who were being treated at local hospitals. The town of around 350,000 people is located 21 miles east of downtown Beijing.
The early morning blast happened at just before 8 a.m. local time and was captured by a nearby vehicle's dashcam. The footage later shared to Weibo, China's largest social media website, showed a loud blast spewing smoke and debris onto the road ahead.
Witness videos taken in the aftermath of the incident showed the burning partial remains of the building, which local media outlets said had housed a fried kitchen restaurant on the ground floor.
The Weibo images additionally showed extensive damage to nearby vehicles, stores and residential buildings, with multiple witnesses in the surrounding area reporting shattered windows, according to state news outlets.
The fire department of Langfang, which administers Sanhe, said in a public statement that the incident happened at an intersection on one of the town's busy thoroughfares. It dispatched 36 fire trucks and more than 150 firefighters to the scene.
Sanhe's Emergency Management Bureau said it evacuated residents within a 1,600-foot radius of the explosion, which its preliminarily findings suggested was caused by a suspected natural gas leak.
Local media reports quoted residents as saying the distinct smell of gas was left lingering in the air after the incident.
One of the town's two gas utility providers told a Chinese news site that inspections of local pipelines were ongoing, and that utility services had been temporarily suspended to 50 residential communities in the meantime.
The city's Emergency Management Bureau did not disclose the identities of the two deceased victims. Its public information office did not answer calls seeking comment.
China's high rate of infrastructure and industrial accidents is often attributed to factors including imbalanced economic development between urban and rural areas, a lack of strict regulatory enforcement and sometimes corruption.
In August 2015, an explosion at a chemical storage facility in the northern port city of Tianjin killed an estimated 173 people including 104 first responders.
Central natural gas supplies or propane tanks are commonly used for cooking in many households in the country.
Policymakers in Beijing have sought to reduce civil gas energy accidents by enforcing compliance, increasing the frequency of inspections and raising public awareness about gas usage.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
John Feng is Newsweek's contributing editor for Asia based in Taichung, Taiwan. His focus is on East Asian politics. He ... Read more
