A series of small explosions killed one person and injured eight others outside the provincial headquarters of the ruling Communist Party in Taiyuan, a city in Northern China, officials said, as reported by The Associated Press. State media said the blasts, which occurred on Wednesday at about 7:40 a.m. were caused by homemade bombs.

"Judging from the scattering of small metal balls, it is suspected that improvised bombs exploded," the news agency said. An explanation of the motive has not been released. Xinhua "cited residents as saying people in the area scattered after as many as seven blasts went off."

The blasts come a week after the Chinese government blamed three ethnic Uighurs from the western region for staging a terror attack when a car ploughed through bystanders near Tiananmen Square and burst into flames, which killed three people in the car and two bystanders, Reuters reported. 40 people were injured, according to The Christian Science Monitor.

China's has been ramping up security in preparation for a plenum meeting in Beijing to discuss key reforms, news reports saidMost "Chinese bomb explosions are not the work of alleged Muslim extremists, though. Almost always they are set off by Han Chinese, members of the dominant ethnic majority, who do it to express their rage at injustice," The Christian Science Monitor also reported.