![this photo taken on july 12 2018 shows firefighters working to put out a fire after an explosion at a chemical plant in yibin in china 039 s southwestern sichuan province the explosion left 19 dead and injured another 12 authorities said on july 13 the latest industrial accident in a country where lax regulations often lead to tragedy photo afp this photo taken on july 12 2018 shows firefighters working to put out a fire after an explosion at a chemical plant in yibin in china 039 s southwestern sichuan province the explosion left 19 dead and injured another 12 authorities said on july 13 the latest industrial accident in a country where lax regulations often lead to tragedy photo afp](https://i.tribune.com.pk/media/images/1756957-chinablast-1531468136/1756957-chinablast-1531468136.png)
The blast occurred at 6:30 pm on Thursday night at an industrial park in Sichuan province's Yibin city, according to a statement on the website of the local work safety administration.
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The injured had been taken to hospital and were in stable condition, county officials said, adding that the resulting fire had been put out.
Photos on a local news site showed what appeared to be the burned out shell of a building surrounded by rubble.
The company that owns the building where the fire occurred is a chemical manufacturer named Hengda, according to the official Xinhua news service.
China has been rocked by several industrial accidents in recent years.
A septic tank explosion last November destroyed a wide swathe of a light industrial area in Ningbo, just south of Shanghai.
In 2015, giant chemical blasts in a container storage facility killed at least 165 people in the northern port city of Tianjin.
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The explosions caused more than $1 billion in damage and sparked widespread anger at a perceived lack of transparency over the accident's causes and its environmental impact.
A government inquiry eventually recommended 123 people be punished. Tianjin's mayor at the time of the accident was sentenced to 12 years in prison for graft in September.
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