Watch giant explosion as Chinese rocket crashes into mountain after ‘accidental’ launch during tests

A CHINESE rocket has crashed into a hillside with a massive explosion after it launched by accident during a test on Sunday.

The rocket, owned by private Chinese space company Tianbig Technology, is supposed to be an upcoming rival to SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.

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The Tianlong-3 rocket, which means Sky Dragon 3 in English, was sat on the launch pad ready for testing.

But footage that has gone viral on social media shows the Tianlong-3 rocket in the air, before it curls back towards Earth in an uncontrolled fall.

The rocket then crashes into a forested hillside of the city of Gongyi, in China's Henan province.

According to Tianbig Technology, the rocket "fell into a deep mountain 1.5km southwest of the test bench".

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It added that there were no casualties from the incident, and that people in the area had been evacuated.

In a statement, the rocket firm said the shock take-off was caused by a "structural failure at the connection between the rocket body and the test bench".

This failure prompted the onboard computer to automatically shutdown, the company stated.

Parts of the rocket showered down within a "safe area", according to a separate statement from the Gongyi emergency management bureau.

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However, the bureau said the incident caused a fire in the local area which has since been extinguished.

The Tianlong-3 rocket is a partly reusable, two-stage, rocket, much like Falcon 9.

A rocket can consist of multiple stages so that it can get further into space.

Once the propellent is burned from the first stage, it is expended, and it falls back down to Earth.

Then the second stage ignites to keep the rocket in the sky.