Society

Fuzhou blasts kill three, destroy vehicles

By Yan Jie and Gao Changxin (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-05-27 08:11

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Xinhua News Agency: Three people, including the suspect, have been confirmed dead in serial explosions that occurred in east China's Jiangxi Province Thursday, local authorities said early Friday.

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FUZHOU , Jiangxi - A series of blasts on Thursday rocked a government compound in Jiangxi province, killing two people including a suspect behind the case and injuring another 10, said local authorities.

A car is destroyed by a blast outside the prosecutor's office in Fuzhou city, East China's Jiangxi province, on Thursday. Zhou Ke / Xinhua

Qian Mingqi, 52, a jobless local resident, allegedly set off bombs on Thursday morning within about half an hour at three different locations in the Fuzhou city of Jiangxi, said local police in a statement.

Qian was killed in one of the blasts, reported Xinhua News Agency, citing sources with the provincial public security department.

Earlier reports said that a disgruntled farmer was suspected of having committed the explosions to vent his resentment over a legal suit, citing unnamed government sources.

At 9:18 am on Thursday, a car blew up at a parking lot outside the building of the city's prosecutor's office, smashing all the windows of the eight-story building, reported Xinhua, quoting unidentified witnesses.

Police had yet to confirm whether there were any casualties in the first blast, it said.

"The blast struck me dumb," a lawyer with the Jiangxi Sansong Law Firm told China Daily.

"I felt as if my office were going to collapse from the blast," he added.

The law firm's office is about 50 meters from the prosecutor's office, said the lawyer, who declined to be named.

About 10 minutes later, a blast hit the first floor of the government building of the Linchuan district, 5 kilometers away from the site of the first explosion. It tossed steel parts of the building's wall as far as a dozen meters away, pictures taken by the China News Service showed.

The big explosion seriously injured four people, with one dying after being rushed to a local hospital, according to local authorities. Another seven suffered minor injuries.

Authorities recovered the body of a male during the clean-up work in the wake of the blast at the government building, said local police. The man was later identified as Qian.

A shop owner who runs business near the district government told China Daily that "after the explosion, I saw a man staggering out of the office building with one of his arms totally broken".

The third explosion occurred at 9:45 am outside the district's food and drug administration, east of the district government building. Witnesses said the blast went off in a car park less than 100 m from the building and destroyed at least 10 vehicles.

A source with the Linchuan district government said Qian was involved in a house demolition dispute, triggering suspicions that he might have set off the explosions as revenge against the local government.

Qian reportedly left a message on his micro blog, saying he was forced to "step on a road I don't want to step on" due to the loss of his newly-built house, which was "illegally demolished".

Local authorities are investigating the blasts.

Xinhua contributed to this story.