At least 26 people are dead, and 61 others are injured after an explosion at a fireworks factory in China that forced it to shut down its manufacturing operations, the Associated Press and Reuters reported.
The blast occurred at a fireworks plant in the city of Changsha in Hunan province on Monday afternoon, both agencies reported.
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The person in charge of the company has been detained by the police, and the cause of the accident is under investigation, the outlets said, without naming the individual.
The factory was operated by the Huasheng Fireworks Manufacturing and Display Co. in the Changsha-administered, county-level city of Liuyang, a fireworks manufacturing hub in China.
More than 1,500 rescue workers were deployed to the scene. Medical personnel and police were also sent to aid efforts, Reuters said.
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Robots, including 18 drones, have been deployed to help mitigate safety risks to human rescuers.
Authorities evacuated nearby residents, citing the high risk posed by two black powder warehouses near the explosion site, Reuters added.
Fireworks and firecracker manufacturers in Liuyang have been ordered to stop production.
Changsha mayor Chen Bozhang said at a press conference that a search and rescue operation at the scene is largely complete, but verification of the casualties and identification of the victims is ongoing.
Chen said that the local government expressed condolences for the victims and apologized to the wider community, including the victims’ families and those who were injured.
“We feel extremely pained and deeply remorseful,” he said.
Ding Weiming, the Changsha Emergency Management Bureau’s party secretary, said the site houses a large amount of flammable products, including significant quantities of gunpowder, causing continuous random blasts and threatening the safety of rescue crews.
Meanwhile, blown-out walls, columns, and a collapsed roof left the site in ruins, trapping people and blocking exit routes, Weiming said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping urged “all-out efforts” in the search for those still unaccounted for and ordered more effective risk screening and hazard controls, as well as stronger public safety management systems, the AP reported.
Liuyang has a long history of fireworks production. The Guinness World Records organization said that the first accurately documented firework, the Chinese firecracker, was attributed to Li Tian, a monk who lived near Liuyang during China’s Tang dynasty, dating to around 618 to 907 C.E.
Li discovered that putting gunpowder in enclosed hollow bamboo stems produced loud explosions, and bound crackers together to make the traditional New Year firecrackers that drive out evil spirits, Guinness said.
China is no stranger to fireworks and industrial accidents. In June last year, an explosion at a fireworks factory in Hunan province killed nine people and injured 26.
Last year, China exported $1.14 billion worth of fireworks, more than two-thirds of global sales data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity showed.
–with files from the Associated Press and Reuters
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