Policemen from the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team practice during a drill in Urumqi, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, in this file photo.Reuters
A blast in the restive Chinese province of Xinjiang has injured an unknown number of people, the country's official news agency has said.
Explosives were thrown from two vehicles on a busy street in the provincial capital Urumqi early on Thursday and smoke and flames engulfed market stalls, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Tensions in the western province of Xinjiang have been on the rise since the 2009 clashes between ethnic Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese.
More than 200 people had been killed in the riots. Beijing, which accuses the Uighurs of terrorism and separatists plans, tightened security measures in the remote, resource-rich region.
More details of the blast are awaited. Beijing tightly controls information from the violence-hit far western region, and the official news agency has just said "an unknown amount of people" have been injured in the blast.
However, Weibo (the Chinese equivalent of Twitter) users posted messages and pictures of the blast through their accounts.
"There were multiple strong explosions in the morning market at the Cultural Palace in Urumqi ... I saw flames and heavy smoke as vehicles and goods were on fire while vendors escaped leaving their goods behind," a Weibo user posted.
In April, Urumqi witnessed a deadly knife attack that coincided with the visit of President Xi Jinping to the region. Before that, a bomb attack at the railway station killed three people and injured dozens. Beijing blamed Uighur militants for the attacks.
In March, suspected Uighur militants stabbed to death 29 people and wounded 143 at a railway station in the south-western city of Kunming.
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