At the least 26 persons are dead, and 61 others are injured after an explosion at a fireworks factory in China that forced it to shut down its manufacturing operations, the Associated Press and Reuters reported.
The blast occurred at a fireworks plant in the town of Changsha in Hunan province on Monday afternoon, each agencies reported.
The person answerable for the corporate has been detained by the police, and the reason behind the accident is under investigation, the outlets said, without naming the person.
The factory was operated by the Huasheng Fireworks Manufacturing and Display Co. within the Changsha-administered, county-level city of Liuyang, a fireworks manufacturing hub in China.
Greater than 1,500 rescue staff were deployed to the scene. Medical personnel and police were also sent to assist efforts, Reuters said.
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Robots, including 18 drones, have been deployed to assist mitigate safety risks to human rescuers.
Authorities evacuated nearby residents, citing the high risk posed by two black powder warehouses near the explosion site, Reuters added.
Fireworks and firecracker manufacturers in Liuyang have been ordered to stop production.
Changsha mayor Chen Bozhang said at a press conference that a search and rescue operation on the scene is essentially complete, but verification of the casualties and identification of the victims is ongoing.
Chen said that the local government expressed condolences for the victims and apologized to the broader community, including the victims’ families and people who were injured.
On this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, this aerial drone photo taken within the early hours of May 5, 2026, shows rescuers working on the positioning after an explosion at a fireworks plant in Guandu Town of Liuyang, central China’s Hunan Province.
Chen Sihan/Xinhua via AP
“We feel extremely pained and deeply remorseful,” he said.
Ding Weiming, the Changsha Emergency Management Bureau’s party secretary, said the positioning houses a considerable amount of flammable products, including significant quantities of gunpowder, causing continuous random blasts and threatening the security of rescue crews.
Meanwhile, blown-out partitions, columns, and a collapsed roof left the positioning in ruins, trapping people and blocking exit routes, Weiming said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping urged “all-out efforts” within the seek for those still unaccounted for and ordered more practical risk screening and hazard controls, in addition to stronger public safety management systems, the AP reported.
Liuyang has a protracted history of fireworks production. The Guinness World Records organization said that the primary accurately documented firework, the Chinese firecracker, was attributed to Li Tian, a monk who lived near Liuyang during China’s Tang dynasty, dating to around 618 to 907 C.E.
Li discovered that putting gunpowder in enclosed hole bamboo stems produced loud explosions, and sure crackers together to make the normal Recent Yr firecrackers that drive out evil spirits, Guinness said.
China is not any stranger to fireworks and industrial accidents. In June last 12 months, an explosion at a fireworks factory in Hunan province killed nine people and injured 26.
Last 12 months, China exported $1.14 billion value of fireworks, greater than two-thirds of worldwide sales data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity showed.
–with files from the Associated Press and Reuters
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