BEIJING -- The Work Safety Commission under the State Council has decided to oversee the investigation into an explosion at a factory in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management.

The blast occurred at around 3 pm on Sunday at a plate plant operated by Baogang United Steel in the west of the city of Baotou. As of 6 am on Monday, the explosion had claimed two lives, left eight others missing, and resulted in 84 people going to hospital.

The ministry has urged local authorities to organize search and rescue operations in a scientific manner, prevent secondary accidents, and provide all-out medical treatment for the injured to minimize casualties to the greatest extent possible. It also called for a prompt investigation into the cause of the accident and stressed the need to draw lessons from the incident to prevent similar accidents from recurring in the future.

Rescue forces from the ministry have been dispatched to the scene.