Global Courant
BEIJING — Boiling gas caused a massive explosion at a barbecue restaurant in northwest China, killing 31 people and injuring seven others during national celebrations on the eve of a long holiday weekend, authorities said Thursday.
The blast ripped through the restaurant on a busy street in Yinchuan, the capital of the traditionally Muslim Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, around 8:40 p.m. Wednesday, as people gathered for the Dragon Boat Festival, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
The explosion left many people unconscious and had to be carried out of the store, according to online news site The Paper, which quoted a member of the search and rescue team. Victims included the elderly and high school students, it added.
An hour before the explosion, workers noticed the smell of cooking gas and discovered that a gas tank valve was broken, Xinhua said. The explosion occurred while an employee was replacing the valve.
Chinese President Xi Jinping demanded urgent medical care for the injured and a safety review following the blast, Xinhua said. He urged efforts to quickly determine the cause of the accident and hold people accountable under the law.
Xi also said all regions and related departments should address “all kinds of risks and hidden dangers” and launch campaigns to promote workplace safety.
The incident took place at an outlet of Fuyang Barbecue, a chain restaurant in Yinchuan popular for its grilled skewers and stir-fried dishes, according to The Paper. The two-story restaurant seated 20 people on the ground floor and offered private dining rooms on the second floor where patrons could also sing karaoke.
An emergency clinic worker at Ningxia Medical University General Hospital confirmed to the AP over the phone that some of the injured were being treated at the hospital, but said she was not authorized to speak to the media and declined to give her name.
The newspaper cited a woman identified only by her last name Chen as saying she was about 50 meters from the restaurant when she heard the explosion. She described seeing two waiters emerge from the restaurant afterwards, one of whom immediately collapsed, as thick smoke billowed from the restaurant and a strong smell of cooking gas permeated the room.
The central government’s Ministry of Emergency Management said on social media that search and rescue work at the restaurant was completed early Thursday morning and that investigators were working to determine the cause of the blast.
The Dragon Boat Festival is a national holiday dedicated to eating rice dumplings and racing boats crewed by teams of oarsmen. While the majority of Yinchuan’s population is Han Chinese, a third are Hui people, or Chinese Muslims.
These kinds of industrial accidents are common in China, mostly attributed to poor government oversight, corruption, cost-cutting measures by employers and little safety training for employees.
At least nine people were killed in an explosion at a Chinese petrochemical plant and three others were killed in a helicopter crash during the country’s May Day holiday.
In February, 53 miners were killed in the collapse of a massive open pit coal mine in the northern region of Inner Mongolia, leading to numerous arrests, and four people were detained over a fire at an industrial trading company in Central China in November that left 38 people.
The central government has pledged stricter security measures since a 2015 explosion at a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin killed 173 people, most of them firefighters and police officers. In that case, a number of local officials were accused of accepting bribes to cover up security violations.
