Blast kills 11 in northern China

Explosives stored at a coal mine manager’s house blew up in a town in northern China, killing him and at least 10 other people, including two students at a nearby school, news reports and police said today.

Police denied a newspaper report that the school had collapsed, killing as many as 20 children, after yesterday’s blast in Kecheng, a town in Shanxi province, a major coal-mining region.