Seven people were killed while another seven injured during a boiler explosion on Wednesday afternoon at a public bathhouse in Hongkou District.

The injured are now all in stable conditions, according to a spokeswoman from Xinhua Hospital in Yangpu District.

The facility received a total of six victims -- two of whom have since died.

A representative from the Shanghai Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Hospital, where three other injured people were taken, said the trio was improving.

Huang Qiang, an official from the Communist Party of China's Shanghai Publicity Department, said: "An investigation into the incident is continuing.'' He declined to reveal more details.

The blast occurred at 3:38 pm on Wednesday.

The Yiyuan Bathhouse, run by a couple, is on Ruihong Lu, a residential area full of old, dilapidated homes.

Most of the victims were women because the boiler room was next to the female bathing area on the first floor. The men's bathing area is on the second floor.

A grocer working near the bathhouse said she heard a loud bang and then the building she was in started shaking.

Liu, a woman who lives on the second floor of the same building , said she had just finished having a bath in the bathhouse when the explosion occurred.

"I thought it was a quake,'' she said. "I ran out immediately and saw broken glass scattered around on the stairs outside.''

Wu Qiang, a spokesman from the Shanghai No 1 Hospital, which was among the faculties taking the injured, said four people died about 4:30 pm.

"Later, another person died when they were on the way here,'' the spokesman said. "By midnight, the five deceased had been identified as four female customers and one worker.''

On October 23, an 18-metre-high distillery boiler owned by a private company in the Pudong New Area exploded, injuring three people. In November 2001, a boiler blast in the Putuo District killed two.

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