An explosion on Thursday hit Urumqi, capital of the restive Chinese region of Xinjiang which is home to mostly Muslim Uighurs, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
An unknown number of people were injured in the blast, which occurred near a park in the city, the agency said in a short dispatch.
Pictures posted on Weibo, a Chinese equivalent of Twitter, showed flames on a tree-lined road, and smoke billowing over market stalls behind a police roadblock.
“There were multiple strong explosions in the morning market at the Cultural Palace in Urumqi,” wrote one poster who said he was less than 100 metres (yards) from the scene.
“I saw flames and heavy smoke as vehicles and goods were on fire while vendors escaped leaving their goods behind.
“The vast, resource-rich far-western region has seen periodic violence which has increased and sometimes spread beyond it in recent months.
China says it faces terrorism from a violent separatist movement there, driven by religious extremism and foreign groups.
