65 killed, over 100 injured in China factory explosion

Beijing: Sixty-five workers were killed and over 100 others injured on Saturday when an explosion ripped through a metal factory in China’s eastern Jiangsu Province, causing widespread damage to the sprawling industrial unit.
The blast in Kunshan, a city in the province of Jiangsu near Shanghai, took place on Saturday morning inside a wheel hub polishing workshop owned by the Kunshan Zhongrong Metal Products Co. Ltd, the city government said.
More than 200 workers were at the site when the explosion rocked the plant.
Rescuers pulled out over 40 bodies while about 20 others died in hospitals, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
An initial probe indicated that the explosion might have been caused by “dust” which ignited inside the workshop, officials said. Photographs circulated on social networking sites showed charred bodies of victims on trucks or lying on the ground as black smoke billowed from the factory
A local radio reporter told Xinhua that she saw a patient, whose clothes and hair were completely burned off and his body “as dark as charcoal.” (PTI)