© WeiboThese screen grabs from social media videos captured on July 20, 2021, reportedly show an aluminum alloy plant in Dengfeng, Henan, China, exploding after being breached by floodwaters.
In a statement released online, the municipal government of Dengfeng, a city in Henan province, said no casualties or missing persons had been reported as of 10 a.m. local time (10 p.m. ET on Monday), following the blast at a local aluminum alloy company owned by Dengfeng Power Group Co. Ltd.
Authorities said the plant in the town of Gaocheng was shut down and its staff evacuated at around 4 a.m. after the nearby Ying River burst its banks and the surrounding walls collapsed.
The explosion happened around 6 a.m. when floodwaters reached the high-temperature solution inside the plant's alloy tank, the statement noted. Work to handle the aftermath of the incident was "ongoing in an orderly manner," it added.
Newsweek was unable to reach Dengfeng Power Group Co. Ltd. by telephone.
Torrential rains in Zhengzhou, Henan, China, lead to flooding on July 20, 2021.
Shockwaves from the blast appear to show smoke and clouds being pushed away from the site of the violent explosion.
A resident, identified by her last name Liang, told The Beijing News: "I heard a loud explosion while still in bed this morning. It shook my windows and gave me a huge fright. I thought it couldn't have been thunder."
"I wasn't injured, but all the glass shattered, and my windows and doors broke," Liang added.
A spokesperson for the Dengfeng Emergency Management Bureau said its personnel were responding to the incident.
Tuesday's explosion happened amid continuing torrential downpour across parts of China. The provincial weather service has described recent rainfall as surpassing "historic figures."
For the three days to 11 a.m. on Tuesday, parts of Henan had recorded up to 512.2 millimeters of rainfall, including 288.3 millimeters in Dengfeng, the Henan Meteorological Bureau reported.
The weather office had issued a yellow warning for heavy rain on Monday, but this was raised to red — the higher alert level — early the following day and is expected to last through Wednesday.
A notice at 1 p.m. said torrential rains and gale-forced winds were expected for the next three hours, with up to 100 millimeters of rainfall expected in provincial capital Zhengzhou.
Comment: As a sign of how extreme this weather system was, it's likely that it also caused the collapse of two dams in the country.
However, explosions and fires at industrial sites have been in the news with an increasing frequency, although, notably, unlike the incident mentioned above, not all of them can be as easily explained; it's also likely that not all of them are related to Earth Changes:
- Gas explosion destroys hotel in Russian Black Sea resort town, 1 dead, 5 injured (13th July) :
- Fire at new hospital ward in Iraq kills 60, second this year thought to be due to oxygen tank explosion (Jul 2021)
- Huge explosion filmed in Caspian Sea, officials speculate oil rig fire or mud volcano - UPDATE: Footage of 'new island' formed in aftermath released (Jul 2021)
- Huge explosion & fire underneath tube station in London (Jun 2021)
- Huge blaze breaks out at Illinois chemical site after enormous explosion, locals evacuated (Jun 2021)
- Fire at martial arts centre in China kills 18, mostly children (Jun 2021)
- Scottish Dark Sky Observatory destroyed in suspicious fire (Jun 2021)
- Major fire hits oil refinery in Syria's Homs (Jun 2021)
- Fire at medical marijuana lab in Italy kills 1, injures 3 (May 2021)
See also: SOTT Exclusive: The growing threat of underground fires and explosions