At least one person was killed, and 21 others were injured when an explosion shattered glass in surrounding buildings and produced smoke clouds in a residential neighborhood in Shanxi province, northern China, on Wednesday, April 30. CCTV added that two people remain missing.
State broadcaster CCTV said that the blast took place at around 1.17 pm in Shanxi's Taiyuan city. The cause of the explosion is being investigated.
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.
According to CCTV, a total of 210 firefighters and 43 fire trucks were deployed to the scene.
The explosion comes 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".
CCTV reported that Liaoning authorities said on Wednesday that the exact cause of the fire remained under investigation. However, they have already ruled out a gas explosion or arson.
The most recent occurrences come after a string of comparable mishaps in China in recent years. An apartment for the elderly at a nursing facility in the northern province of Hebei caught fire earlier in April, killing 20 people.
