Nine people are dead and 10 are injured as a gas explosion ripped apart a restaurant in east China's Jiangsu Province Sunday, local authorities said.

The gas explosion happened at around 11 a.m. at a street snack bar among a row of three-story shops in Xishan District in the city of Wuxi, according to the city's publicity department.

Rescue work finished at 5 p.m., and the injured were in stable condition, the department said.

The shops around the incident zone suffered varying degrees of damage.