Casualties top 100 in west China explosion

From staff and wire reports

BEIJING, China -- A vehicle carrying explosives blew up Friday evening in the suburbs of Urumqi, killing or injuring more than 100 people, the Xinhua news agency reported.

The news service, quoting sources at the Ministry of Public Security in the city, did not give the exact number of people killed.

The explosives were on a truck and were to be destroyed. They detonated as the vehicle was on the Xishan Road in the western suburbs of Urumqi at 7:30 p.m. (11:30 p.m. GMT), "damaging more than 20 other vehicles and nearby houses," the news agency said.

Local police were clearing the site of the explosion and helping the injured, Xinhua said, adding that the cause of the explosion was under investigation.

The vast, sparsely inhabited Xinjiang region, largely desert, has many Chinese military and nuclear installations and civilian mining operations.

Muslim Uygurs who speak a Turkic language make up much of its population and the region has been rocked by riots, bombings and assassinations against the Chinese authorities and ethnic Chinese immigrants since 1996.

Chinese authorities have cracked down on underground groups and in July executed three men they said were separatists linked to a "reactionary Muslim organization" involved in making bombs.

Uygur militants have been struggling for decades to establish an independent state they call East Turkistan in Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan, Pakistan and three former Soviet Central Asian republics.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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