Beijing: The death toll in the powerful explosion at a chemical plant in eastern China climbed to 64 Friday as a number of people succumbed to their injuries. The blast had taken place Thursday afternoon.
President Xi Jinping ordered Saturday that the causes of the accident must be identified as early as possible. He instructed local governments and relevant departments to learn the lesson hard, tighten safety hazard check, seriously implement the accountability system for workplace safety, to prevent such accidents, the state-run ‘Xinhua’ news agency reported.
The blast occurred Thursday following a fire in a fertiliser factory in a chemical industrial park in Yancheng, Jiangsu province, according to the government of Xiangshui county. The toll may rise as other than the 64 dead, 640 people are being treated for various kinds of injuries and some of them are critical.
Executives of the chemical plant have been taken into police custody. A professor of applied chemistry at Beijing University of Chemical Technology, in an interview with ‘CCTV’, said the leak of toxic chemicals might have affected the people and environment in the surrounding areas and that the residents of the area should be evacuated as quickly as possible.
The fire fighter brigade of Jiangsu has mobilised 176 fire trucks with 928 personnel to join the rescue mission, the Ministry of Emergency Management said.
Yancheng’s education department said school students were among those injured in the explosion. Online maps of the area indicate that there are at least 10 schools close to the site. Meanwhile the ‘Beijing Youth Daily’ reported that the explosion was caused by benzene and occurred in a production area of the plant.
PTI