Bucket blast kills 2, injures 44

Fatal blast: A sniffer dog works at the scene of an explosion, which killed two people and injured at least 44 near a school on Monday in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. [MENG XIAN / FOR CHINA DAILY]

Police unsure whether fatal explosion was an accident

A massive explosion about 10 meters from a major county school in Lingchuan, the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, killed two people and seriously injured at least 44 on Monday morning.

The explosion occurred at 7:10 am, just as parents were dropping their children off at Balijie School, located on a busy street in Lingchuan and about 8 kilometers from Guilin.

The school employs 140 teachers and has 3,100 students from grades 1 to 9. Zhu Ge, a teacher at the school, said that most of the students were children of migrant workers.

Tang Xiaoling, the spokeswoman for the Lingchuan government, said a security camera almost directly above the school's front gate has footage of a driver on a motor tricycle carrying a metal bucket immediately before the explosion.

The blast instantly killed the driver, but Tang said police are still investigating and have not listed the unidentified driver as a suspect.

She added that the local government is not sure if the explosion was a deliberate act of violence.

A 25-year-old woman crossing the street from the blast also died after being sent to a hospital. She was a teacher in a kindergarten near Balijie School.

Nearly 100 injured students and parents are being treated in hospitals. Forty-four of them were severely wounded and have been transferred to hospitals in Guilin.

The blast knocked out all of the windows of the school and of nearby hotels, shops and residential buildings within 100 meters. All that remained of the motor tricycle were the handlebar and several pieces of distorted metal sheeting about 30 meters from the blast point. The six-lane street in front of the school was black with a mixture of ash and blood.

Police found the metal bucket between the charred remains of an electric bicycle and a motorcycle about 10 meters from the explosion. It contained highly combustible material as well as gravel and pieces of iron, according to an inspector from the Guangxi public security department, who declined to give his name.

Ma Hongying, the owner of a grocery store next to the school, said she was cooking breakfast at her shop for about nine primary school students standing outdoors with their backs facing the street when the bomb went off.

"It sounded like thunder and the whole building was shaking. The windows broke into pieces and fell from the upper floors. Nobody knew what happened. The street was immediately filled with dust, black smoke and howls of children and adults," she said.