HONG KONG — Thirty-one people were killed in an explosion at a barbecue restaurant in northwestern China, officials said Thursday.
The blast was caused by a gas leak and occurred around 8:40 p.m. Wednesday local time (8:40 a.m. ET) on a busy street in the city of Yinchuan, the capital of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, according to Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency. Seven others were injured, one of them critically.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered “all-out rescue and treatment” of the injured and strengthened safety measures, Xinhua reported. Nine people, including the manager and other staff members, have been detained and the restaurant’s assets have been frozen, the agency said.
The explosion took place on the eve of the three-day Dragon Boat Festival, a national holiday that is celebrated with sticky rice dumplings and races between boats of paddling teams.
Photos from the scene published by state media show firefighters working among debris outside the heavily damaged storefront and injured people being carried away on stretchers.
China’s Ministry of Emergency Management said in a social media post that search and rescue operations at the restaurant, Fuyang Barbecue, had ended early Thursday morning and that an investigation was underway.
Explosions and other industrial accidents are not uncommon in China, where they are often attributed to corruption, efforts to save money and a lack of safety training and oversight.
In January 2022, at least 16 people were killed by an explosion at an office canteen in the city of Chongqing that was also thought to have been caused by a gas leak.
A June 2021 gas pipe explosion at a market in the central city of Shiyan killed 26 people, injured 138 and led to 11 arrests. In March 2019, 78 people were killed and 76 seriously injured in an explosion at a chemical plant in the eastern province of Jiangsu. In both cases, government officials accused companies of negligence.
On Wednesday, 47 people who had been missing since a Feb. 24 coal mine collapse in China’s Inner Mongolia region were pronounced dead, Xinhua reported, bringing the total number killed to 53.
The Chinese government has treated safety concerns more urgently since 2015, when a series of explosions in the northern port city of Tianjin killed 173 people and injured hundreds more. Officials said they were set off by a blast at a warehouse that until two months earlier had been operating with an expired license for handling hazardous chemicals.
Jennifer Jett
Jennifer Jett is Asia digital editor for NBC News, based in Hong Kong.
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