A man has been detained by police following an explosion at an illegal firecracker warehouse on Sunday which killed 15 people in north China's Hebei Province.
According to the police, the warehouse was a laundry before being leased to villager Zhao Cunli, the man now in police custody. Zhao sublet the premises on July 1 to Song Shicai from another village, who last week had 11 villagers perform "illegal activities" in the property.
At about 9 a.m. on Sunday the building was destroyed by an violent explosion and 12 bodies were found among the rubble. Three people who working in nearby factories at the time died later in hospital. Another 25 people were injured, two of whom remain in a serious condition.
The gates of a garment factory some 100 meters away from the warehouse were splattered with blood. The blast shattered nearly all the windows of a residential building close to the warehouse and another factory about one kilometer from the scene also had its windows broken.
"I had no idea what the warehouse was used for because it always seemed to be closed," said Gu Lijuan, a worker at the factory who was cut by flying glass.
"I don't know there was a firecracker factory in the vicinity. At first I thought the explosion was a celebration for a new business opening," said Zhang Ruomin, another worker who was burnt on his arms and face.
Investigators are still looking into the cause of the explosion.
