Urumqi railway station explosion injures at least 50 people in Xinjiang

China’s Urumqi railway station in western Xinjiang region has been hit by an explosion, injuring a number of people

China’s Urumqi railway station in western Xinjiang region has been hit by an explosion, injuring a number of people, state media report.

The blast hit Urumqi’s south railway station on Wednesday evening, state media said. The cause is not clear, but one report said at least 50 were hurt.

Xinjiang has experienced several violent clashes over the past months.

China’s Urumqi railway station in western Xinjiang region has been hit by an explosion, injuring a number of people

President Xi Jinping visited the region this week, and has promised to step up anti-terrorism efforts.

Verifying reports from the region is difficult because the information flow out of Xinjiang is tightly controlled.

“A blast occurred at Xinjiang’s Urumqi train station at around 19.00 tonight, and there are injured personnel,” state-run newspaper People’s Daily said on its verified microblog feed.

Meanwhile, The Beijing News said at least 50 people had been injured, citing police officers.

Photos on social media, which could not be independently verified, appeared to show suitcases and debris strewn across a street after the blast.

However, several microblog posts and photos related to the explosion appeared to have been quickly deleted from Sina Weibo, China’s largest microblog platform.

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Roy Siemens

Roy likes politics. Knowledge is power, Roy constantly says, so he spends nearly all day gathering information and writing articles about the latest events around the globe. He likes history and studying about war techniques, this is why he finds writing his articles a piece of cake. Another hobby of his is horse – riding.