TAIYUAN, July 7 (Xinhua) -- Forty-three people were killed and 28 more injured early on Friday in a blast caused by privately stored explosives in Ningwu County, north China's Shanxi Province.

    The explosion took place around 6:30 a.m. in a villager's home in Dongzhai Village, Dongzhai Township, local police sources confirmed.

    Preliminary investigation suggests that a fire was blamed for triggering the explosion.

    A worker with the Ningwu County Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) said over the phone that in the beginning, one villager's home suddenly caught fire, many fellow villagers then rushed to help extinguish the fire.

    Suddenly, the bun glow ablaze exploded, killing 37 villagers on the spot and injuring many others. Six more died in the hospital.

    The villager's home was blasted into rubbles. Windows of adjacent houses were broken amid the explosion, said the county Party committee worker, whose name was unknown.

    Zhang Baoshun, secretary of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), demanded that all out efforts be made to rescue the injured, and responsible persons be punished according to law.

    Ningwu County, administered by Xinzhou City, takes a bus ride of more than four hours to reach from Taiyuan, the provincial capital.

    Party and government authorities of Ningwu and Xinzhou have rushed to the spot to oversee the rescue work.

    A rescue headquarters, with the leader of Ningwu County Government as the commander-in-chief and consisting of seven specialized-task missions, has been formed to carry out the rescue operation.

    More than 200 fire fighters, armed police and public security police are busy clearing off the debris from the explosion.

    Ningwu was not the first time shattered by this fatal blast. In July 2 last year, a gas explosion at the Jiajiabao Coal Mine in Ningwu killed 36 people and injured 11. The mine's owner hid the bodies of 17 dead miners after explosion to evade punishment.

    With vast coal reserves, Shanxi Province, commonly known as "sea of coal, is the biggest coal producer in China. However, legions of fatal accidents occur in the province each year, and tragedies caused by illegal storage of explosives used for mining.

    A similar bloody explosive explosion occurred in Yuanping City of the province in April this year. More than three tons of explosives illegally hidden in the garage of the staff hospital affiliated to the Xuangang Coal and Electricity Company detonated, killing 34 people.

    In June this year, 10 people were killed when privately stored explosives went off in a residential building in Fanshi County of Shanxi Province. Enditem