Bomb at NW China airport leaves one injured

Armed police and bomb squads cordon off the area where a bomb exploded at Xining Caojiabao Airport in northwest China's Qinghai province on July 15. Photo from China Youth Daily's Weibo account.

An explosion rocked a parking lot at Xining Caojiabao Airport in Northwest China's Qinghai province at 1:45 pm Tuesday.

A member of the airport's cleaning staff was injured, and has been sent to hospital.

The bomb was placed in a garbage bin in the corner of a parking lot.

Armed police and bomb squads cordoned off the area within five minutes after the explosion, and they searched the area for any other bombs.

The operation of the airport has not been affected.

Caojiabao Airport is 28 km from downtown Xining. It was built in 1991 as an important transportation hub on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The airport handled more than three million passengers in 2013.