Changping Millworker "Goes Postal," Sets Off Explosion at His Workplace

Another week, another violent outburst in Beijing: This past Sunday a man detonated a homemade explosive device in a steel mill's office building in Beijing’s Changping district. The explosion destroyed one of the office rooms on the ground floor, but nobody was injured, according to The Beijing Times (via News.qq.com).

The man, surnamed Liang, is a local Beijinger and had been working at the steel mill for more than 20 years. According to his co-worker, he had always been nice to people but made a very low salary (below RMB 2,000 a month).

The explosion took place around 8am on Sunday morning, but, fortunately, did not result in a fire. According to one of Liang’s co-workers, Liang had been very unhappy with the company about his salary and had previously locked the company’s front gate in order to stop people from entering or leaving the mill to protest his wages.

After setting off the explosion, Liang returned home and called the police to confess. The local police station has detained him and the case is still under investigation.

This latest outburst comes in the wake of a string of stabbings and an incident involving an aggrieved Shandong man in a wheelchair who injured himself and a bystander after detonating a homemade bomb at Beijing Capital International Airport in protest of allegedly unfair treatment and the beatings he suffered as a petitioner in Guangdong.

Photo: The Beijing Times