Rocket booster drops from sky and explodes near town after Chinese space launch

Well this kind of thing is bound to happen when you prefer to launch your rockets far inland away from the coasts. It also happens to not be as uncommon an occurrence as it should be. Maybe they should start launching out in the ocean??? Russia has vast, vast stretches of uninhabited lands, so when their boosters fall back it is unlikely to be anywhere near population centers. But with China being the most populated state on Earth, I guess it is not something that can be avoided 100%.

GB Times
A booster from a Chinese Long March 3B rocket launch dropped from the sky and exploded near buildings in Guangxi, southwest China on Friday, shocking locals and onlookers.

The Long March 3B lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan Province at 07:18 local time on Friday, carrying two Beidou-3 GNSS satellites.

Minutes after launch as the rocket flew downrange, four strap-on boosters separated from the core, with one dropping near the town of Xiangdu in Tiandeng Country, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, around 700 kilometres from the launch site.
The booster did not hit any people or buildings, but the still burning wreckage will have posed a serious health hazard to locals who approached to film the debris, as seen below.

China's first three launch sites were established during the Cold War, with Jiuquan and Taiyuan constructed deep inland for security reasons. This means that today's space launches pass over inhabited areas. Though drop zones for Long March rocket stages are carefully calculated and launch notices and procedures put in places, events like the above are all too common, especially with China's space activities expanding greatly in recent years.

An unidentified man stands next to what is likely an engine from a Long March 4C rocket from the launch of the Chinese Yaogan Weixing-27 satellite in August 2015. Internet photo

Whoops

I really respect that guy looking at it like he just dngaf....Keeps walking.

He thinking hory fruk DAT wras crose !

Only a scratch this time compared to the crash at Xichang in '96 which appeared to have pretty much wiped out an entire village when the long march 3B came down on it shortly after launch. The Chinese government was not very forthcoming with details at the time.

Xichang 15 Feb 1996

hey freebie rocket engine!

The chinese launches rockets without informing the nation so people never know when and if there was a rocket launch.

Probably only big missions will be reported the rest are done in deep secrecy.

a reply to: 0bserver1
This doesn't really surprise me. China has it's own way of dealing with their population. Somehow I don't see them too worried about the consequences if something were to incinerate a village.

I've never heard of a Chinese "Autonomous Region". Is that a nice way of saying a "wasteland" or "we don't care about this area"?

The military controls all the airspace in China and never properly warn anyone of anything they are doing.

They are well known for randomly decided "oh we are doing an air defense intercept drill and will close the airport for 3 hours," in Shanghai, in the middle of the afternoon. Been on the receiving end of that mess before.

Most of the lateness of domestic flights in China is caused by the military. They try to keep the international flights on time as best as possible so as not to let the tourists onto the dictatorship that China really is.

There's also photos of a military plane going down in flames near Shanghai caught on smart phone camera and video posted around the net which the government and military denied ever happened. Although more than 100 families were notified shortly after that their sons died in a "training accident".