A series of underground gas explosions killed 20 people and injured 270 others late Thursday in Taiwan's second-largest city, authorities said, according to The Associated Press.
The National Fire Agency said five firefighters were among the dead, the AP reported. Taiwan's Central News Agency reported that firefighters had been at the scene investigating reports of a gas leak when the explosions occurred.
Taiwan's Premier Jiang Yi-huah said at least five blasts shook the streets of Kaohsiung, a southwestern port city of 2.8 million, according to the AP.
Video from Taiwanese broadcaster ETTV showed a row of large fires burning in the middle of a street in the southwestern city, with smoke rising into the night sky, the AP reported.
Chang Jia-juch, the director of the Central Disaster Emergency Operation Center, said the leaking gas had been identified as propene, meaning that the resulting fires could not be extinguished by water, adding that emergency workers would have to wait until the gas is burnt away, according to the AP. The source of the leak was unknown.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu said several petrochemical companies have pipelines built along the sewage system in Chian-Chen district, which has both factories and residential buildings, the AP reported.
"Our priority is to save people now. We ask citizens living along the pipelines to evacuate," Chen told TVBS television, according to the AP. Power was cut off in the area, making it difficult for firefighters to search for others who might be buried in rubble.
CNA said the local fire department received reports from residents of gas leakage at around 8:46 p.m. and that explosions started around midnight, the AP reported. Closed-circuit television showed the explosion rippling through the floor of a motorcycle parking area, hurling concrete and other debris through the air.
The explosion left a large trench running down the center of one road, edged with piles of concrete slabs torn apart by the force of the blast, according to the AP.
