"At around 2:52 p.m. on March 21, the fire department of Xiangshui County in Yancheng city received reports of an explosion at the Jiangsu Tianjiayi Chemical Co., Ltd. … Eighty-six fire trucks and 389 firefighters have been deployed to the scene. The firefighters have rescued 12 of those injured so far," the Jiangsu province fire department said in its post on Weibo.
Videos and pictures, circulated on Weibo, showed windows and doors of residential buildings located close to the chemical plant were completely shattered.
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The China Earthquake Networks Center has said on its official Weibo account that it detected a 2.2 magnitude earthquake at 2:48 p.m. local time at the site of the blast.