Summary The blasts come a little over one week after a car barrelled into Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
BEIJING (AFP) - A series of devices packed with ball-bearings exploded outside a provincial headquarters of China's ruling Communist Party on Wednesday, police and reports said.
"There were several explosions caused by small explosive devices near the party provincial commission in Taiyuan," the capital of the northern province of Shanxi, local police said on a verified social media account.
According to the police statement, one person was wounded and two cars were damaged.
"Public security officials are currently on the scene and working all-out to investigate the incident," it added.
Ball bearings were seen scattered around the scene, China's official Xinhua news agency reported. They are an ingredient used by bombmakers to increase the chances of blasts inflicting injuries.
"The accident is suspected to be caused by self-made bombs," it said.
Pictures posted on China's hugely popular weibo social networks showed vehicle doors peppered with small impacts, and tyres with holes punched through them. Other photos showed car windows blown out and debris scattered across the road.
Xinhua quoted two witnesses near the site who said they heard a loud noise, then saw smoke, followed by a mini-van exploding.
Images showed several fire engines on a road, which had been blocked to traffic, and a large crowd on one side of the street.
Several photos that appeared to be taken from inside a car showed billowing grey smoke rising above a city street.
China's state broadcaster CCTV reported that about 20 cars parked 100 metres away from the site had been damaged, and that firefighters and police were conducting rescue work and an investigation.
The blasts come a little over one week after a car barrelled into Beijing's Tiananmen Square, killing two tourists and injuring dozens, with the three people inside dying after they set the vehicle on fire.
Authorities termed that incident a "terrorist attack" and have said that it was carried out by several people with links to a separatist group known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement from China's far-western Xinjiang region, home to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority.
The latest incident comes ahead of a highly anticipated meeting of top party leaders in Beijing this weekend, at which broad economic reforms are among the items expected to be on the agenda.
