Three students were killed Wednesday in an explosion at a laboratory at Beijing Jiaotong University, the Chinese capital’s fire brigade announced.
The explosion occurred around 9.30am (0130 GMT) while students from the environmental engineering department were conducting an experiment related to wastewater treatment, the fire brigade added in a statement. “At 9:34 am, the city command center was alerted to the explosion in the laboratory of Building 2 on the east side of the campus and immediately sent eight fire crews and 30 vehicles to the scene,” they said.
The explosion gave rise to a fire which was put out around 10.20am, according to the same source who did not provide further details.
Images broadcast by Chinese media show a blackened, windowless one-story building bordering a courtyard turned white by firefighters’ dry ice.
Accidental explosions occur regularly in China, usually in the industrial sector. Last month, a gas leak at a chemical plant caused an explosion that killed 23 people in Zhangjiakou, the city that will host the 2022 Winter Olympics, located about 200 kilometers northwest of Beijing.
But one of the most serious industrial accidents occurred in 2015 in Tianjin: a gigantic explosion in a chemical warehouse caused at least 165 deaths in this large port city, about 120 kilometers from Beijing.
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