China said a series of mystery explosions killed at least 18 people in this northern city Friday, but a human rights group said up to 200 were feared dead in the blasts.
The official Xinhua news agency said an unspecified number of explosions rocked the provincial capital of Hebei province at around 5:00 a.m. (2100 GMT Thursday).
The agency said the cause of the blasts was unknown but had left 18 people dead. At least one explosion was near a workers' dormitory attached to the state-owned Number Three Cotton Factory, said Xinhua.
Xinhua gave just three paragraphs of information at 0600 GMT and no other information has appeared on state media since.
Residents in the city around 200 kilometers (120 miles) southwest of Beijing told AFP there were four loud explosions around dawn which brought several buildings crashing to the ground.
They said the two largest blasts were at residences attached to the Number Three and Number One Cotton Factories and that the sites were quickly sealed by police. Police blocks were erected at the entrances to the city and foreign journalists were prevented access to the scene by undercover officers.
"I heard the explosion. The whole building went flat and many people were trapped inside," said a resident called Mr. Zhou, who lives near the five-storey residence of the Number Three factory.
Another resident, who lives 300 yards (meters) from the building, added: "It was really loud. My windows were shaking and many people nearby thought it was an earthquake."
An official at a city hospital told AFP rescue crews had pulled out a steady stream of victims from the rubble, but declined to give further details. Officials at other hospitals refused to answer any questions.
The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said up to 200 people were killed in four explosions and that traces of the explosive TNT had been found at two sites.
"They are obviously criminal explosions and the death toll could reach 200," said a statement from the center.
The center is regularly the first organization to break sensitive news from around China and is usually reliable.
The statement said the residence of the Number Three factory had around 170 people in the building and that more than 12 hours after the explosion just 28 people had been rescued alive.
It said the second blast ripped through a four-storey residential building near the Number One Cotton Factory, leaving around 60 people dead.
The statement said a third blast rocked a two-storey residence near the Number Seven Cotton Factory and a fourth hit a residential building in Dianda Road. It gave no details of casualties in these two explosions.
An official at the public security bureau offices in the city refused to comment and said investigations were still going on.
A man who identified himself as Mr. Zhai at the Hebei provincial government denied the death toll could reach 200.
"Two hundred dead is impossible, it could be a little higher than 18 but not 200," he told AFP.
An official at the Number One Cotton Factory told AFP that only four of the 10 cotton mills in the city were now functioning and that other plants had been shut down as part of China's reforms of state-owned enterprises.
The reforms have thrown tens of millions of people out of work in the past three years and have led to growing protests and incidents of worker unrest around China.
Shijiazhuang has also been a stronghold of the outlawed Falungong spiritual movement which has been the victim of an often brutal 19-month campaign by the government.
Hundreds of Falungong practitioners have been jailed and tens of thousands sent to labor camps since the quasi-Buddhist sect was banned in July 1999.
The city late last year also executed a man who set off five bombs at public places, including crowded buses and outside shopping malls.
The bombs injured some 28 people, according to official reports, which said the man was trying to extort a ransom in return for stopping the attacks -- SHIJIAZHUANG, China (AFP)
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