Rescuers work on the site of an explosion in Yanjiao of Sanhe City, north China's Hebei Province, March 13, 2024. Seven were killed and 27 others injured following an explosion in north China's Hebei Province on Wednesday, local authorities said Thursday. The blast, suspected to have been caused by a gas leak, occurred at 7:54 a.m. Wednesday at a shop in Yanjiao township in the city of Sanhe, according to the city's emergency management bureau.(Photo: Xinhua)

A gas pipeline leakage in transportation has been preliminarily determined to be the main cause of the explosion that killed seven people in Yanjiao, a satellite town of Beijing, on Wednesday, the head of the investigation team said on Thursday. 

The location of the explosion was within a building complex containing a fried chicken shop, but further investigation of the specific shop still needs to be undertaken, said Liu Fulai, the head of the investigation team, in an interview with media on Thursday afternoon. The gas leak occurred at a certain depth underground and the team is currently trying to detect its exact location, he said. 

The explosion occurred in a building in the town of Yanjiao, Sanhe city in North China's Hebei Province at 7:54 am Wednesday. The incident resulted in seven deaths and 27 injuries.

In the initial reports, the location of the explosion was believed to be a fried chicken shop. Ji Hongtu, head of the emergency management bureau of Sanhe city, clarified on Thursday that the fried chicken shop was not the actual location of the explosion, nor was it the location of the leak.

The explosion occurred at one of the four shops next to the fried chicken shop, Ji said during the interview. During the explosion, the signs of these four shops were blown away, so the initial official report used the fried chicken shop as a reference point. 

Ji stated that the explosion was not directly related to improper operations by business owners.

"The gas pipeline was installed a long time ago in Yanjiao, and the underground pipeline network is quite complex. The old pipelines have been in use for over 20 years, with the deepest one buried 12 meters underground," Ji said, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

He said that investigating the incident is proving difficult, as it is hard to determine whether there was a single or multiple leaks.

By 11 pm on Wednesday, on-site rescue work had basically wrapped up. On Thursday, efforts had entered the stage of investigation and post-accident handling, Ji said. Among the injured, 14 people have already been discharged from the hospital.

According to a report by The Beijing News, there were a total of 612 gas accidents reported by media in the Chinese mainland in 2023, resulting in 77 deaths and 434 injuries. Among them were four major accidents and one extremely serious accident.

Global Times