Three people are missing after a gas explosion ripped through a partially collapsed building in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin.

Eleven were injured, the Associated Press reported, quoted by BTA.

The incident is under investigation, but poor infrastructure appears to be the cause.

For more than thirty years, China has experienced breakneck economic growth.

This development has greatly increased the standard of living, but often regulations in the field of safety and ecology are not respected, notes the Associated Press.  

Three floors of the damaged six-story building collapsed.

Xinhua news agency reported that the subsequent explosion occurred at 7:15 a.m. local time.

Photos showed the upper floors of the building collapsed, but no apparent damage to neighboring buildings.

A big fire broke out near a gas station in Kazanlak

The city remembers the large explosion in 2015 at a chemical warehouse that killed 173 people, most of them policemen and firefighters.

The chemicals were improperly registered and stored, and local officials were found complicit and accused of underestimating the potential danger.

In China, long-outdated infrastructure is being replaced, with a particular focus on gas pipelines used for cooking, heating and electricity.

An explosion in 2013 in the northeastern port of Qingdao killed 62 people after underground pipelines burst and gas leaked.

In addition, building codes are not strictly followed in rural areas and in the suburbs, with new floors being erected on buildings that cannot structurally support them.

In April, a block of flats and restaurants collapsed in Changsha.

53 people died.

explosion

China