Police have detained a company boss for illegally storing explosives that triggered a blast at a factory in eastern China leaving 16 people dead and 43 people injured, state media said.
The explosion occurred in Anhui province early Sunday morning at the Jingxin Mining company that produces and processes quartz sand.
Cao Peijun, the boss of the company, was found to be illegally storing up to seven tonnes of explosives in an office building, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
He was captured by police fleeing with two million yuan (292,500 dollars) he had withdrawn from a bank, Xinhua said.
Cao's son, a senior manager at the factory, turned himself in to the police, it added.
The blast levelled a two-storey building and ripped through a dormitory, a dining hall and workshops.
The privately owned company in Fengyang county employed about 60 people and began production in 2003, Xinhua said.
China's work safety record is notoriously bad. Thousands of people die every year in mines, factories and on construction sites, according to official sources.
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