Deadly blasts, killing 10, caused by movie props?

April 15, 2013 | 10:21

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Movie props are suspected in the twin blasts that destroyed three houses and killed 10 on a residential street in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 3 early this morning.

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Preliminary investigations found the explosions occurred at the house 384/9 hired by Le Minh Phuong whose nickname is Phuong of Smoke and Fire to store his movie props including tools to create fire and smoke effects.

Phuong was also among the dead, local police confirmed.

The 58-year-old man was said to be in charge of creating smoke and fire effects for movies produced by Lac Viet film studio based in Vietnam.

It was reported that a family of seven, including a housemaid, was among the dead in the explosions.

Reports said local people living in the alley number 384 on Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Street in front of Vinh Nghiem Pagoda heard two explosions in five minutes and later discovered three houses were in flames and their walls had already collapsed.

Local residents said the explosions occurred at around 0:15am, Feb 24.

After being informed of the incident, hundreds of firefighters on more than 12 fire trucks came to their rescue.

The blast also caused a shockwave that shook houses within a radius of several hundreds of meters and even broke some windows.

HCMC’s Police Department has asked authorities in District 3 and other police forces jointly to continue to investigate the cause of the explosions.

Tuoi Tre

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