A huge cooking gas explosion has left 31 people dead and a further seven injured at a barbecue restaurant in China. As authorities in the country have revealed.
The blast, which tore through the building on a busy Yinchuan street on Wednesday evening (June 21) occurred. As trevellers gathered to celebrate Thursday’s Dragon Boat Festival holiday, reports the official Xinhua News Agency.
The festival is a traditional holiday occurring on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar.
And celebrated by holding boat races and eating sticky rice dumplings called zongzi.
Yinchuan, meanwhile, has a population of around 2.3 million and is the capital of the traditionally Muslim Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in the northwest of the country.
Chen thus added that she witnessed two waiters emerging from the restaurant in the aftermath of the blast. One of whom collapsed immediately as thick smoke billowed from the building with the strong smell of cooking gas clearly evident.
A statement by the Central Government’s Ministry of Emergency Management on Thursday morning. It also advised that rescue work had completed and an investigation into the cause of the explosion was already underway.
China is no stranger to industrial accidents of this kind, with poor government supervision, corruption. And cost-cutting measures often attributed to the problem, according to the Associated Press.