India firecracker factory explosion kills 11

An explosion at a firecracker factory in northern India killed at least 11 people Monday, including eight children, police said.

Police officer Satnarayan Prajapat confirmed the deaths and said several others were injured in the blast in Kaushambi district of Uttar Pradesh state.

Local media reported that the explosion caused several nearby houses to collapse and that most of the dead lived in those houses. The Hindustan Times reported that the children killed were aged between four and 13.

The cause of the blast was not immediately clear.

Industrial accidents are common in India, often because safety rules are poorly followed and weakly enforced. A fire at a fireworks factory in western India killed 17 people in March, and a fire at a firecracker storage facility in southern India killed eight people the following month.