An explosion in a Chinese restaurant in Areia Preta last night killed a woman and injured six other people, a Fire Services Bureau (CB) spokesman told reporters at the scene of the blast.
The spokesman said the cause of the blast was yet to be determined but it was possibly caused by the restaurant’s LPG bottles.
According to the spokesman, the bureau received a report about the blast at 9:47 p.m. Firemen found five injured restaurant patrons, and later at about 10:30 p.m. rescued a man and a woman who were trapped under a collapsed wall of a residential building adjacent to the restaurant.
Firemen broke into the shop next to the restaurant to check if there was anyone inside injured or affected by the blast. No-one was in the shop.
The spokesman said that about 50 people fled the restaurant when they heard a loud bang in the kitchen, sending glass shards and debris flying across the two-lane street and damaging several cars and scooters parked there.
The seven people who were taken to the public Conde de Sao Januario Hospital Centre comprised three males and four females, aged between 34 and 53.
The spokesman said that two men were seriously injured, while the woman who had been trapped under the wall was unconscious, sustained bones fractures and had no pulse and neither was she breathing when the firefighters rescued her.
A statement from the hospital late last night confirmed that the 34-year-old woman, a local resident, has died due to serious internal and external injuries and multiple serious bone fractures.
The statement also said that three injured people required inpatient treatment. One of them suffered a serious thigh injury which required emergency surgery. Another patient suffered second degree burns and was in the ICU late last night. The third patient suffered serious cuts and required hospitalisation. The other three slightly injured victims were discharged from the hospital after receiving medical treatment.
According to the spokesman at the scene of the incident, the wall between the restaurant and the residential building that collapsed measured 3 metres by 5 metres, and was temporarily reinforced after the deadly blast.
Police seal off the area in front of the Chinese restaurant (with red signage) hit by last night’s deadly blast. Photos: Iong Tat Choi
Firemen carry a woman on a stretcher from a residential building where a wall collapsed due to last night’s gas explosion at a restaurant next door. The woman later died at the public Conde de S. Januario Hospital Centre.
