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Rescue teams were dispatched after the explosion at the food court on the 12th floor of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi shopping mall in the central city of Taichung, the National Fire Agency said. The site was closed for construction at the time of the blast, the agency said.
Taichung Fire Chief Sun Fu-you said the explosion appeared to be caused by a gas leak, but it was unclear whether it was related to construction work. Firefighters urged people to stay away from the disaster site.
Seven people from a family from Macau were hit by falling debris as they were leaving the mall, a hospital official told reporters. Among them were two grandparents who died and five other family members were injured, including a two-year-old child who suffered serious head injuries.
Videos posted on social media and verified by AFP show the moment of the explosion, with large amounts of debris falling onto the street and dust billowing from inside the building.
Like an ‘earthquake’
Floors 9 to 12 were affected, the fire agency said, while 200 people were evacuated.
Shin Kong Mitsukoshi shopping mall chain President Richard Wu said he was “very shocked and very sad.” “We will do our best to take all responsibility for the parties we are responsible for,” he told reporters at the scene.
“I was working in the city hall building around 11:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. in Switzerland) and, as it is right next to the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store, I felt a jolt,” said the city’s mayor, Lu Shiow-yen.
A total of 56 fire engines and 136 personnel, a dog and a drone were mobilized for the search and rescue operations, the agency said.
“There was a jolt and my bed was shaking,” Liao Yu-fu, 26, who lives near the blast site, told AFP. Awakened from his nap by the explosion, he thought “a plane had crashed into a house.”
“At first we thought it was an earthquake,” a woman who was on the sixth floor of the store at the time of the incident told local TVBS. “When I went down the stairs, there was broken glass on every floor, at the entrance of the elevator. All floors are affected.”
According to the mayor, the explosion affected a large area and at least one passerby was among the victims.
This article was edited to clarify the number of deaths.
