9 killed in blast at chemical plant in eastern China

An explosion at a chemical factory in eastern China on Wednesday killed nine people and injured two others, officials and news reports said.

An explosion at a chemical factory in eastern China on Wednesday killed nine people and injured two others, officials and news reports said.

Soldiers of the People's Liberation Army anti-chemical warfare corps work next to a damaged firefighting vehicle at the site of an earlier explosion in Tianjin (Reuters photo)

The Xinhua News Agency said the cause of the explosion at a workshop owned by Tianbao Chemical Industry Co. in Linyi city in Shandong province is still unknown. The company manufactures explosives for mining and other commercial uses.

The city said the identities of the nine bodies were being determined through DNA tests.

Xinhua said one of the injured was in critical condition.

The explosion is the latest in a string of serious accidents involving deadly chemicals in China. In August, 173 people, many of them firefighters, were killed in a chemical explosion in the port of Tianjin involving 700 tons of highly toxic sodium cyanide.