A powerful explosion destroyed a fireworks factory in north
China's Hebei
Province, killing 29 people and injuring more than 100, Xinhua
News Agency reported yesterday.
The explosion happened at about 6 pm Monday evening in the
township of Wangkou. The blast demolished half of a two-storey
office building 100 metres away and set fire to cars and
motorcycles close to the factory building.
Photographs taken by Xinhua News Agency showed rescue workers in
hard hats, complete with motorized shovel combing through the
charred rubble of the plant.
Twenty-nine people had been confirmed dead as of yesterday, while
rescue workers are still working hard to find missing bodies.
Reports said that more than 100 people were injured in the
blast, although only a few cases were considered serious.
"I thought it was an earthquake. I was really scared. My sister
and I just ran out of the house,'' Qian Yun, a 19-year-old living
about 5 kilometres away from the factory, said in a telephone
interview with China Central Television.
Another villager, Zhang Fangjie, was working on his farm at the
time of the blast.
"I heard three or four explosions in a row and saw black smoke
rising in the distance,'' the 40-year-old Zhang said.
The cause behind the devastating blast is still not clear, and
Hebei police have so far refused to give more details.
Reports from Xinhua said the factory was authorized to produce
pyrotechnics by the local government in December 2000. It had
passed safety inspections from local police departments.
Fatal explosions still occur frequently at China's fireworks
factories, despite a safety crackdown launched in early 2002
following a series of high-profile accidents.
The industry employs hundreds of thousands of people, with many
working at home or in small factories where most manufacturing is
done by hand.
In one of the worst recent cases, 80 people were killed in April
2002 in the northern province of Shaanxi, when a villager set off
explosives stored in the house of a business rival.
(China Daily July 29, 2003)