Five people were killed and 14 others injured in a blast that hit a private firework workshop in a village in east China's Anhui Province on Sunday morning.

The workshop belongs to Ma Diansheng, a villager in Dama Village, Taihe County, who was among the dead.

Police rushed to the site found that the 72-year-old Ma used his own house to produce fireworks illegally. The blast blew off his six-room house.

The injured are still under medical treatment in hospital.

(Xinhua News Agency June 12, 2006)