Explosions near Communist Party building in China. 
Explosions Near Communist Party Building in China

    
        
            
                    
                        
			            
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                                    Explosions Near Communist Party Building in China
                                    
                                        
				By Gerry Mullany			
                                        November 5, 2013 9:29 pm
                                        November 5, 2013 9:29 pm
                                    
                                
                                
                                    
                                        Photo
                                            
                                                
                                                
                                            
                                            Smoke billowing from the site of the explosions in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi Province.Credit                                                Liu Guoliang/Xinhua, via Associated Press
                                            
                                        
                                    
                                    
                                    
                                    Updated, 1:38 a.m. EST | A series of small explosions occurred outside a Communist Party building in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan on Wednesday, killing at least one person
                                    and injuring eight others, the state media and government officials reported.
                                    
                                    A resident of a building facing the party offices told Xinhua, the official news agency, that seven blasts had sent pedestrians fleeing.
                                    The explosions came as security has been heightened in China after a sport utility vehicle drove into pedestrians and then caught fire at the entrance to the Forbidden City in Beijing, killing five people, including
                                        three in the vehicle, and injuring 40. Chinese officials characterized the Oct. 28 attack as having been carried out by ethnic Uighur extremists from the Xinjiang region, in western China.
                                        
                                    The building where Wednesday’s explosions occurred was an office building of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party, Xinhua said. Taiyuan, with a population of more than four million, is the provincial
                                        capital. 
                                    The police have yet to publicly identify any potential suspects. Shanxi’s Public Security Bureau said in a message posted online that it is conducting an “all-out investigation.”
                                    
                                        Photo
                                            
                                                
                                                
                                            
                                            A photo from a Chinese social media site showing people reacting to the explosions.Credit                                                Sina
                                            
                                        
                                    
                                    Ball bearings were found at the scene of the explosion, leading to suspicions that a homemade bomb was used, Xinhua reported. The blasts struck around 7:40 a.m., the Shanxi Public Security Bureau said in a notice                                        on its official microblog account.
                                    Images of smoke and damaged cars filled Chinese microblogs in the hours after the explosion. The street in front of the party building, a main thoroughfare home to several government buildings, was shut down after the
                                        explosion, according to residents reached by phone.
                                    Li Zhenzhen, who works in Taiyuan, said she passed by the scene after the explosion. The police had already closed off the area and were preventing passers-by from taking photographs, she said. “There were a
                                        lot of glass shards on the ground,” Ms. Li said. “There was blood on the ground.”
                                    The explosions struck just three days before the Chinese Communist Party’s current Central Committee was scheduled to hold its third plenum, an important meeting that is supposed to set China’s economic
                                        course over the next decade.
                                    China has seen at least one other bomb attack outside official buildings in recent years. In 2011, two people were killed and seven injured after three explosions around government offices                                        in the city of Fuzhou in the eastern province of Jiangxi. The man suspected of being the perpetrator, who died in one of the blasts, was angered by the low compensation he had received for the demolition of his
                                        home for highway construction.
                                    Wen Yunchao, a Chinese human rights activist based in New York, has been reposting images from the scene on Twitter under the hashtag #山西省委爆炸, which means Shanxi Provincial
                                        Party Committee Explosion.
                                    
                                        爆炸发生后四分钟发上微博的照片。 #山西省委爆炸 //t.co/wC3E7reI8b
                                        — 北风（温云超, Yunchao Wen） (@wenyunchao) 6 Nov 13
                                            
                                        
                                    
                                    Some of the photos showed large ball bearings and the damage done by them.
                                    
                                        网友在现场发现的钢珠。 #山西省委爆炸 //t.co/QCrDv0xO3e
                                        — 北风（温云超, Yunchao Wen） (@wenyunchao) 6 Nov 13
                                    
                                    
                                        转：从现场散落的钢珠看，疑似自制炸弹爆炸。 #山西省委爆炸
                                            //t.co/WqgQHN7q9w
                                        
                                        — 北风（温云超, Yunchao Wen） (@wenyunchao) 6 Nov 13
                                    
                                    Bree Feng contributed research.
                                
                                
                            
                            
                        
                    
                    
                    
                
            
        
        
        
    
    
    
    


