From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Dozens Die After Explosion in a Barbecue Restaurant in China   
   By Chris Buckley, June 22, 2023, NY Tmes   
   A gas explosion that ripped through a barbecue restaurant in northwestern   
   China killed at least 31 people, officials said on Thursday, hours after the   
   blast had turned the restaurant into a charred ruin.   
      
   The explosion hit the two-story restaurant in Yinchuan, the capital of the   
   Ningxia region, at 8:40 p.m. on Wednesday, when it was busy with customers   
   eating lamb kebabs and other dishes cooked on gas burners. Firefighters rushed   
   to the scene, where thick    
   smoke rose into the sky and shattered glass and debris covered the street.   
   They put out the fire within an hour.   
      
   The scale of death became clear to the public only on the following morning,   
   when the authorities announced the death toll and that seven other people were   
   hospitalized with injuries, one in critical condition.   
      
   Chinese Communist Party authorities have become increasingly effective at   
   withholding details of accidents and disasters until they are in full control   
   of the situation. A brief initial report from Xinhua, the official news   
   agency, had said one person    
   was killed and 20 injured. It did not mention the possibility of more dead.   
      
   On Thursday, officials in Ningxia promised a thorough investigation of the   
   blast and announced a campaign to improve safety. China’s top leader, Xi   
   Jinping, issued a statement of condolence, as he usually does after major   
   accidents. Mr. Xi noted that    
   the explosion happened on the night before the Dragon Boat Festival, or   
   Duanwujie, a traditional Chinese holiday. “Pay attention to hidden, emerging   
   risks and carry out comprehensive safety checks,” he said.   
      
   The deadly explosion is likely to result in closer scrutiny of China’s   
   booming barbecue restaurant industry. Overall, China’s safety record in   
   mines and work sites has been improving, according to official statistics, and   
   local governments often    
   order checks of restaurants and their gas supplies. But serious accidents   
   persist.   
      
   In late 2021, an explosion in a barbecue restaurant in Shenyang, in northeast   
   China, killed five people. Earlier this month, a Chinese news website about   
   the dining industry counted at last 11 gas explosions in restaurants since   
   June 2022, some of them    
   deadly.   
      
   A full official account of the cause of the latest accident is likely to take   
   weeks or months. But Xinhua, citing police and fire department records, said   
   restaurant employees remembered detecting a gas leak about an hour before the   
   explosion and tracing    
   it to a broken valve. The blast happened while the valve was being replaced.   
   Two phone numbers registered under the restaurant’s name were out of service.   
      
   Later on Thursday, Xinhua reported that the operator of the restaurant and   
   eight other staff members or shareholders in the business had been placed   
   under police control (a euphemism usually meaning detention), and their assets   
   had been frozen.    
   Government authorities were still trying to determine the identities of the   
   dead, the report said.   
      
   https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/world/asia/china-barbecue-res   
   aurant-explosion.html   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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