Investigators from the Shenyang emergency department and gas company are at the scene of an explosion which killed at least one person and injured 33 in the provincial capital of Liaoning on Thursday morning.
Windows were shattered in multiple buildings and parked cars were hit with flying debris in the blast, which appears to have originated from a residential and commercial mixed-use building at the intersection of Shenyang’s Nanqi Road and Taiyuan Nan Street, according to the preliminary investigation.
Photos posted by the Liaoning fire department on social media showed the explosion left the building’s reinforcement bars exposed. A gas leak is suspected to be behind the blast.
Police and firefighters evacuated nearby residents. A woman who lived near the scene said her windows were shattered by the blast but her flat did not otherwise suffer much damage.
Another woman, living on the fifth floor of a building facing the blast site, said all of the windows in her block had been smashed. “I was scared when the explosion happened,” she said. “Then I saw the fire trucks. They came quite quickly, after about a little more than 10 minutes.”
She was in her kitchen at the time of the explosion, and said the room’s concrete ceiling had been loosened by the blast.
Authorities said the cause of the explosion is being investigated.
