Authorities announced on Thursday, June 22, 2023, that a massive explosion at a barbecue restaurant in northwestern China, has killed 31 people and injured seven others.
The blast is believed to have been caused by cooking gas leakage and it happened during national celebrations on the eve of a long holiday weekend.
State news agency reported that the explosion tore through the restaurant at around 8:40 p.m. Wednesday, June 21, 2023 on a busy street in Yinchuan, the capital of the traditionally Muslim Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, as people gathered ahead of the Dragon Boat Festival.
Many people were left unconscious and they needed to be carried out of the shop, according to the online news site, which quoted a member of the search and rescue team. Victims included elderly people and high school students, it added.
An hour before the explosion, employees perceived the smell of cooking gas and discovered that a gas tank valve was broken, the state news agency disclosed. The blast occurred while an employee was replacing the valve.
The incident happened at an outlet of Fuyang Barbecue, a chain restaurant in Yinchuan popular for its grilled skewers and stir-fried dishes, the online news outlet disclosed.
The two-floor restaurant could seat 20 people on the ground floor and offered private dining rooms on the second floor where customers could also sing karaoke.
A staff member in the emergency clinic at the General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed to reporters via phone call that some of the injured were receiving treatment at the hospital.
Meanwhile the online news site mentioned a woman identified only by her surname Chen saying that she had been about 50 meters (164 feet) from the restaurant when she heard the explosion.
She described seeing two waiters emerge from the restaurant afterward, one of whom collapsed immediately, while thick smoke engulfed the restaurant and a strong smell of cooking gas permeated the area.
The Dragon Boat Festival is a national holiday devoted to eating rice dumplings and racing boats manned by teams of paddlers. While the majority of Yinchuan’s population is Han Chinese, a third are Hui people, or Chinese Muslims.
Xi Orders Urgent Medical Care For The Wounded
According to news reports, Chinese President Xi Jinping demanded urgent medical care for the injured and a safety overhaul after the explosion. He called for efforts to quickly ascertain the cause of the accident and hold people accountable under the law.
Xi added that all regions and related departments should address “all types of risks and hidden dangers” and launch campaigns to promote workplace safety.
The central government’s Ministry of Emergency Management announced on social media that search and rescue work at the restaurant was completed early Thursday morning and investigators were working to ascertain the cause of the blast.
Industrial accidents of this kind are a regular occurrence in China and it is typically blamed on poor government supervision, corruption, cost-cutting measures by employers and little safety training for employees.
An explosion at a Chinese petrochemical plant claimed the lives of at least nine people and three others died in a helicopter crash during the country’s May Day holiday.
Since an explosion in 2015 at a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin that killed 173 people, the central government has vowed to ensure stronger safety measures.
Most of the people who died in that incident were firefighters and police officers and a number of local officials were accused of having taken bribes to ignore safety violations.
