BEIJING (AP) _ An elderly man in eastern China who used his home as an illegal fireworks factory was killed along with four others when the workshop exploded, the government said.

The six-room home of 72-year-old Ma Diansheng was blown apart by the blast Sunday, which killed him and four others who were not identified in the brief Xinhua News Agency report. It said Ma had been using his house as a workshop to illegally produce fireworks.

Fourteen others were injured in the explosion in Anhui province's Taihe county, Xinhua said in the report late Sunday.

China's fireworks industry suffers hundreds of deaths every year in fires and explosions as thousands of people, often in poor rural areas, do much of the work by hand in illegal or poorly equipped workshops.