BEIJING (Reuters) -At least one person was killed and 21 others injured when an explosion rocked a residential area in northern China’s Shanxi province, creating clouds of smoke and shattering glass in nearby buildings, state media reported on Wednesday.
The blast occurred at around 1:17 p.m. (0517 GMT) in Shanxi’s Taiyuan city, state broadcaster CCTV said, adding the cause was being investigated.
Two people remain missing, according to CCTV.
Footage circulating on Chinese social media Weibo, unverified by Reuters, appeared to show several vehicles engulfed in flames outside a building, with dense smoke pouring from the cars and some residential windows.
A total of 210 firefighters and 43 fire trucks were deployed to the scene, CCTV said.
The explosion came just a day after a restaurant fire in northeastern China’s Liaoning province killed 22 people. President Xi Jinping described the incident as “a deeply sobering lesson”.
Liaoning authorities said on Wednesday the exact cause for the fire remained under investigation, but they had ruled out a gas explosion or arson, CCTV reported.
The latest incidents follow a spate of similar accidents across China in recent years. Earlier in April, 20 people were killed in a fire that broke out in an apartment for the elderly at a nursing home in the northern province of Hebei.
(Reporting by Farah Master in Hong Kong and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Kate Mayberry and Alex Richardson)
