Cooking gas explosion kills 31 people at a barbecue restaurant in northwestern China

BEIJING —  A massive cooking gas explosion at a barbecue restaurant in northwestern China killed 31 people and injured seven, Chinese authorities said Thursday.

The blast tore through the establishment about 8:40 p.m. Wednesday on a busy street in Yinchuan, the capital of the traditionally Muslim Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, as people were gathering on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The festival is a national holiday devoted to eating rice dumplings and racing boats operated by teams of paddlers.

Chinese President Xi Jinping demanded all-out treatment of the injured and a safety overhaul after the explosion, Xinhua reported.

Online news site the Paper cited a woman identified only by her surname Chen as saying she had been about 164 feet from the restaurant when she heard the explosion. She described seeing two waiters emerge from the restaurant afterward, one of whom collapsed immediately, while thick smoke billowed from the place and a strong smell of cooking gas permeated the area.

The Ministry of Emergency Management said on its social media account that search-and-rescue work at the restaurant was completed early Thursday and investigators were sent to determine the cause of the blast.

Industrial accidents of this type are a regular occurrence in China, usually attributed to poor government supervision, corruption, cost-cutting measures by employers and little safety training for employees.

At least nine people were killed in an explosion at a petrochemical plant and three died in a helicopter crash during the country’s May Day holiday.

In February, 53 miners were killed in the collapse of a massive open pit coal mine in the northern region of Inner Mongolia, leading to numerous arrests, and four people were detained over a fire at an industrial trading company in central China in November that killed 38 people.

The central government has pledged stronger safety measures since an explosion in 2015 at a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin killed 173 people, most of them firefighters and police officers. In that case, many local officials were accused of having taken bribes to ignore safety violations.