Death toll of fatal blast rises to 4

Two people who had been reported missing in a deadly blast that rocked China’s port city of Ningbo last weekend have been confirmed dead, police said today.

Sunday’s blast hit a crumbling light-industrial area after a fugitive wanted for manufacturing and selling illegal explosives had asked relatives to dispose of the material.

The two missing people were confirmed to be the father and a cousin of the fugitive.

The explosion has killed a total of four people and injured 19 others.

The 33-year-old suspect surnamed Shan, who had been wanted by police in the northeast province of Liaoning since late October, was arrested on Monday night. He had been hiding in the central province of Hubei, police said.

The explosives were shipped from Liaoning to Ningbo and contained aluminum powder and barium nitrate.

The explosion happened after his relatives took the material to the site on Saturday. They began to dismantle the explosives that night and continued on Sunday morning, when the material blew up.

The local government said a septic tank in a vacant lot was at the epicenter of the blast.

“Investigation showed careless handling could have caused the explosion and excluded the possibility of any intentionally man-made blast,” police said.

The force of the explosion shattered windows in nearby apartments, mangled cars and reduced small buildings to rubble, though locals said the structures were already slated for demolition.