A gas explosion inside a restaurant in China near Beijing was said to have killed at least one and injured 22 others in the city of Sanhe.
The incident was suspected of being caused by a gas leak at a fried chicken shop, and local reports added that the injured individuals had already been hospitalized.
The explosion comes as China has experienced a series of deadly accidents in the past few months. Lax safety standards and poor enforcement have typically caused these.
China Gas Explosion
Rescue workers rushed to the scene of the incident, and the local Langfang service said that 36 emergency vehicles and 154 personnel had been dispatched to respond to the Sanhe explosion.
Law enforcement personnel cordoned off the streets and directed people nearby to stay away from the area. According to Aljazeera, officials said the fire was currently under effective control and that rescue work was being carried out urgently.
Video footage of the incident that was shared on the Chinese social media platform Weibo showed destroyed building facades. There were also many mangled cars and glass littered in the surrounding streets that could be seen as some of the objects were on fire.
A separate video on Chinese social media showed what seemed to be a building that had completely collapsed due to the explosion, with debris strewn across the street. The incident comes after at least 15 people were killed and 44 others injured last month. It was due to a fire at a residential building in the eastern city of Nanjing.
In the latest explosion, at least three buildings were severely damaged, and one was left in a skeletal state. Local residents posted on social media that they heard a sudden and loud band in the early morning and then felt their buildings shake, said CNN.
Dozens also lost their lives in January after a fire broke out at a shop located in the central city of Xinyu. Local media outlets reported that the blaze had been caused by workers' "illegal" use of fire in the store's basement.
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A Series of Fatal Incidents
That particular blaze happened only a few days after a fire at a school in central Henan province that killed 13 schoolchildren while they were sleeping in a dormitory. Local media reports also suggested that an electric heating device caused the incident.
A gas explosion was also reported in June last year at a barbecue restaurant in northwest Ningxia region that killed 31 people. After that incident, Chinese market regulators issued detailed guidelines on using gas appliances and cookers to avoid safety risks.
In November 2023, 26 people lost their lives, and dozens of others were hospitalized after a fire at a coal company office located in northern China's Shanxi province, according to the Voice of America News.
The Shanxi incident occurred after the region's mining safety regulator issued a notice last month that told mines to curb overproduction to prevent accidents. This comes as China's top-producing coal mine region observed a surge in deaths last year.
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