The explosion of a pesticide plant at Yancheng, north of Shanghai leaves 47 to death and 640 people were taken to 16 hospitals on Thursday afternoon. Death toll can rise as thirty-two survivors of them were critically injured.
Executives of this chemical plant in China’s Jiangsu province have been taken into police custody. It is one of the country’s worst industrial accidents in recent years after 165 people were killed In 2015.
Images broadcast on local media showed how the blast toppled factory buildings, trapping workers inside.
State media said the fire was not brought under control until the early hours of Friday and the latest in a series of industrial accidents that has sparked widespread public anger,
Jiangsu will launch inspections on chemical producers and warehouses, according to an emergency notice published by official media on Friday.
The notice, published on the news website of Jiangsu Communist party, said the government would shut down any chemical firms found not complying with regulations on dangerous chemicals.
The cause of the blast was under investigation, but the company – which produces more than 30 organic chemical compounds, some of which are highly flammable – has been cited and fined for work safety violations in the past, the China Daily said.
The Jiangsu environmental protection bureau said in a statement late on Thursday that the environmental monitoring station in the area had found no abnormal concentrations of toluene, xylene or benzene.
President Xi Jinping, who is in Italy on a state visit, ordered all-out efforts to care for the injured and to “earnestly maintain social stability.”
Authorities must step up action to prevent such incidents from happening and find out the cause of the blast as quickly as possible, Xi added.
“There have recently been a series of major accidents, and all places and relevant departments must fully learn the lessons from these,” the report cited Xi as saying.
>Juthy Saha
