At least
seven people were killed and 59 injured in an explosion at a kindergarten in
eastern China, the state media reported on Thursday.
The blast
occurred at about 4:50 pm at the gate of the kindergarten in Fengxian County in
Jiangsu Province when the children were leaving the school, officials were
quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.
According to
Hong Kong based South China Morning Post, dozens of people were reported to
have been injured in the explosion.
It was not
immediately clear what caused the blast, which rocked the kindergarten as
parents were picking up children from the school.
Pictures and
videos posted online showed at least a dozen people lying outside the gate of
the kindergarten, the paper said.
Some victims
were seen covered in blood while others appeared to be unconscious and some
even with their clothes burned off. Children were seen among the injured.
“About 5 pm,
we heard a blast and thought it might have been a gas explosion at a nearby
food vendor,” a local shop owner was quoted as saying by online news portal
Sohu.
“Many people
could be dead,” he said.
In one video
clip posted online, a man covered in blood was seen trying to stand up only to
collapse again. His clothes appeared to have been burned off.
In a
separate video clip, people could be heard shouting: “Blast, blast, dial 110
quickly!”
The gate of
the kindergarten appeared to have been horribly bent, with shattered glass
littering the scene.
China in the
past witnessed knife attacks on kindergarten school children by disgruntled
people. An explosion of this magnitude was rare.
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