China rose this Thursday, the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, which begins the Dragon Boat Festival, a three-day holiday, with the news of an explosion in a restaurant in the northeast of the country that has left at least 31 dead.
The place, specialized in barbecue, is located in the city of Yinchuan, located on the banks of the Yellow River. The explosion occurred around 8:40 p.m. local time on Wednesday and the rescue operation concluded well into the early hours of Thursday, when the news broke in the media.
“A liquefied gas leak caused the explosion,” the state news agency Xinhua said. According to a fire department report, two restaurant employees claimed to have smelled gas about an hour before the explosion, noticed that the valve of a gas tank was broken and they went to change it. The explosion occurred while they were replacing the valve.
In the images of the CCTV chain, more than a hundred firefighters withdrew trying to put out the fire that came from the facade of a restaurant located on a popular street where several establishments and food stalls are concentrated. In addition, at the time of the explosion, just before the holidays, there were many more people in the area than usual.
These types of explosions and fires occur frequently in a country where the Lax application of optimal security measuresor the quality of construction materials, of many of these establishments.