GUANGZHOU, CHINA (BNO NEWS) -- A large explosion ripped through a steel plant in southern China on Monday afternoon, killing nine people and injuring several others, state-run media reported.

The explosion occurred at around 3:48 p.m. local time at a plant operated by Shaoguan Steel Co. Ltd. in the municipality of Shaoguan in China's southern province of Guangdong. It happened as workers from China MCC5 Group Corp. were installing facilities at the location.

The state-run Xinhua news agency cited local government officials as saying that eight people died at the scene, while a ninth victim died late on Monday evening. Six workers were injured, including one person who remains seriously injured.

The cause of the explosion remains unknown, but investigations have already been launched.

The rapid economic growth in China, in combination with poor safety measures, frequently result in deadly industrial accidents. In late February, thirteen people were killed and 43 others were injured when a blast ripped through a chemical plant in China's northern Hebei province.

YAMAGUCHI (Jiji-Daily Yomiuri)--One male employee died and 11 were injured at a chemical plant in an explosion in Waki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in the hours just before dawn on Sunday.

The blast occurred at about 2:15 a.m. in one of the plants at Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.'s Iwakuni-Otake factory, causing a fire. According to the prefectural government and other sources, the explosion affected about 410 households in Waki and Iwakuni, both in the prefecture, as well as neighboring Otake, Hiroshima Prefecture, breaking residents' windows. Police reported nine residents were injured.

Shota Sunakawa, 22, a plant employee, died in the explosion, according to Iwakuni Police Station. No noxious gas is believed to have been produced despite the fire that broke out, police said. The Yamaguchi prefectural police are questioning plant officials on suspicion of professional negligence resulting in death.

According to the company, two employees near the explosion site were seriously injured and five others were harmed. Four employees of another company sustained minor injuries.

Plant manager Shigeru Hara said the accident occurred at a plant manufacturing resorcin, a material for making an adhesive agent commonly used in tire production. According to Hara, after a facility responsible for supplying steam to the factory unexpectedly stopped, operations at about 70 percent of its plants were suddenly halted.

Six people were killed in two different accidents, including an explosion that brought down a four-storey building in southern China today.

Five people were killed and four others seriously injured when a building collapsed, after an explosion in a nearby garage in east China's Fujian Province.

Rescuers are searching the debris for survivors.

The accident was triggered by an explosion that ripped through a garage and toppled a four-storey building in Daji Village of Longyan City.

The building was a residential complex owned by Shubang Coal Mine.

HOHHOT - Fire fighters on Sunday morning put out the blaze in a chemical plant in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, which has caused one dead and three others injured.
The accident happened around 5 pm Saturday at Inner Mongolia 3F Fluorochemical Co Ltd. in the city of Fengzhen. A huge amount of flammable gas has been leaked after the chemical plant caught fire and exploded.
Some tanks containing VDF gas, a flammable and narcotic gas, on the ground floor of the plant's high-rise workshop caught fire. Fire fighters rescued three injured workers trapped in the flames, and evacuated other workers out of the building.

NANJING - An explosion early Tuesday at a chemical plant in a city on China's east coast has injured two people and left another two missing, according to local authorities.
The blast occurred in Lianyungang Taiyi Fine Chemical Factory in Donghai county in Lianyungang city, Jiangsu Province, a spokesperson for the county government said.
Firefighters are still searching for the missing in the plant, the spokesperson added.
The windows and doors of a school situated 700 meters away from the chemical facility were severely damaged, but no students were hurt as the explosion happened early morning, outside of school hours.
The school's classes have been suspended and will resume Tuesday afternoon.
The explosion caused the leakage of 250 kg of ammonia, which has been diluted with water and will not affect the environment, according to the spokesperson.

Poor facilities, lax management and under-qualified workers may all have played a role in the chemical factory blast in Hebei province that killed 25 people and injured 46, according to a preliminary investigation.
The investigation's findings, released by the State Administration of Work Safety on its website on Tuesday afternoon, said that 25 people were killed in the accident and four were still missing, a sharp increase from the 17 casualties announced on Feb 29. There were no updates to the list of injured, which remains at 46 people. On Feb 28, a blast ripped through the Keeper Chemical Factory in Zhaoxian county, Hebei province, razing the three-story building. The explosion also seriously damaged other buildings at the site and shattered the windows of houses up to two kilometers away.
The investigation found that a heat transfer oil spill under one of the three chemical reactors inside the factory caused a fire that heated the ammonium nitrate and guanidine nitrate in the reactor. Both compounds are used to make explosives and explode at high temperatures.
This caused one reactor to explode, triggering a second, massively destructive blast in the plant.

At least 13 people have been killed and 43 injured in an explosion at a chemical plant in northern China.

Officials and state media said the blast flattened a workshop at the Hebei Zhaoxian Kerr Chemical Company on the outskirts of the Hebei provincial capital of Shijiazhuang and shattered windows in surrounding villages.

The state Work Safety Administration said on its website that the explosion happened during the production of a high-energy fuel and propellant, guanidine nitrate.

An explosion ripped through a north China chemical factory Tuesday, killing at least 13 people and injuring 43, the government said of the latest industrial accident to strike the nation.

The impact of the blast, which occurred near Shijiazhuang city, capital of Hebei province, was felt in at least three nearby villages, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Photographs posted on the Internet purportedly of the blast site showed a large crater surrounded by debris. The walls of several work shops that surrounded the site had been destroyed.

The cause of the blast is still under investigation and rescue efforts are ongoing, the State Administration of Work Safety said on its website.

The casualty toll came from a preliminary report, the administration said, indicating it could rise.

Safety standards are regularly flouted in China, and workplace accidents remain common despite repeated pledges by the government to improve regulations and oversight.

Nearly 50,000 people died in work-related accidents in the first nine months of 2011, the administration said earlier.

An explosion caused a chemical plant in southwest China's Chongqing municipality to catch fire early on Friday morning, local authorities have said.

No casualties have been reported so far after the acetylene-burning blast happened at 3:30 a.m. at a workshop of Fangxin Fine Chemical Co. Ltd. in Jiangbei district, said a spokesman with the district government.

The fire has been controlled, and the cause of the accident is being investigated.

LANZHOU - A chemical worker died in a tank truck explosion in Northwest China's Gansu province Monday morning, local authorities said.
The tank trailer carrying 58 cubic meters of liquefied petroleum gas exploded near an LPG station in Xigu district in the provincial capital Lanzhou at around 9 am, the city's safety administration said in a press release.
It said the blast, which occurred during nitrogen replacement, broken the tank into pieces, shattered several windows and toppled a fencing at the gas station.
The victim was not identified.

SEVENTY-THREE companies dealing with hazardous chemicals were shut down in Shanghai over past year and 15 relocated, city work safety authorities said yesterday.

It was part of a city drive to pull out of this sector due to safety concerns. This is set to continue this year.

"Tight measures will be taken this year," said Vice Mayor Ai Baojun, who supervises work safety in the city, in a meeting yesterday.

Ai said the government will crack down on the sale of banned chemical products this year.

Chemical industry safety frequently made the headlines last year, with a series of fires and explosions in industry zones in Pudong's Gaoqiao area.

No one was injured in the incidents.

Poor equipment and lax management were to blame for two fires in September, the work safety authorities said yesterday.

China detained seven people in connection with a toxic metal spill in Guangxi province that contaminated a tributary of the Pearl River and threatened water for 1.5 million people, according to a local official.
All seven were executives at chemical plants, the official Xinhua News Agency reported late yesterday, citing Feng Zhennian, an official with the regional environmental protection department. Feng didn’t identify the executives, Xinhua said.
Chinese workers have dumped chemicals to contain the cadmium spill, detected Jan. 15 upstream of the city of Hechi, which killed fish and prompted panic buying of bottled water. Lead poisoning from battery makers, fluoride leaks from solar panel plants and acid spills from mines have sparked outrage in China, as three decades of growth transformed the nation into the world’s second-biggest economy and its largest polluter.

Authorities in Liuzhou, a city of 3.7 million in Guangxi Province in southern China, are battling to contain the spread of the toxic chemical, after elevated levels of cadmium were detected on Friday in the Liujiang River, the main source of drinking water in Liuzhou. Panicked residents were rushing to stock up on supplies of bottled water, after being told not to drink water from the river.
Sluices were being opened upstream in an effort to dilute the carcinogenic cadmium, which was discharged into the Longjiang River and has spread downstream leaving large numbers of fish dead. Earlier in the week, fire fighters dumped hundreds of tons of dissolved aluminium chloride into the Longjiang River in an effort to neutralise the pollutant, but fears remain that it will continue to flow further downstream and affect other cities.
Local officials, though, are insisting that tap water in Liuzhou is safe.
"The water is still up to national standards and is safe for drinking," said Gan Jinglin, the head of Liuzhou's Environmental Bureau. The chemical spill in Guangxi is the latest in a long line of incidents that have rendered China's rivers and waterways some of the most polluted in the world, despite efforts by Beijing to pressure local authorities to shut down polluting industries.
The deadly discharge occurred almost two weeks ago on January 15th, but was only reported by state media on Thursday. The Guangxi Jinhe Mining Company in Hechi City is being blamed for the release of the cadmium. It is not known for how long the company had been discharging the pollutant into the Longjiang River or in what quantities.

Apple on Friday said that explosions at two of its parts suppliers last year were caused by airborne aluminium dust created during the milling and polishing of products such as iMacs, MacBooks and iPads.

The company made the disclosure as part of its sixth annual “Supplier Responsibility Progress Report”, in which it also for the first time listed all of its major suppliers. The report covers issues such as worker safety, labour rights and environmental impact.

Explosions

The explosions took place at a Foxconn plant in Chengdu, China, in May and RiTeng Computer Accessory, subsidiary of Pegatron, in Shanghai in December. The Foxconn explosion killed four workers and injured 18, while the Pegatron incident injured between 59 and 61 workers.

One worker is missing and three others were injured after an explosion ripped through a chemical plant in Shanghai's Songjiang District early this morning.

The explosion happened at Shanghai Habo Chemical Technology Co around 2:30am. The powerful blast shattered windows of the factory and nearby buildings.

A worker's mishandling of peracetic acid caused the blowup, preliminary investigation has found. The worker remains missing.

The three workers suffered minor injuries and are in stable condition.

Authorities said monitoring of air quality showed no environmental concerns.

YINCHUAN, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- Two people were killed in a road accident Tuesday morning that caused a chemical leak in northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region, local police confirmed Tuesday.

The accident occurred at 8:30 a.m. in Yuanzhou district in the city of Guyuan. A van rear-ended a fuel tank truck loaded with 20 tonnes of crude benzene after failing to brake on an icy road, which caused an explosion, local police said.

Villagers nearby have been evacuated due to a poisonous chemical leak following the explosion, according to local authorities.

The gas from the incomplete combustion of the crude benzene was poisonous to humans, local police said.

An explosion ripped through a warehouse at a chemical plant in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Thursday. It’s forced the evacuation of about 6000 residents living nearby. No injures or death have been reported.

It happened at about 1:30 in Thursday afternoon at a storage facility at the Futian Chemical Company in Guangzhou.

Ninety firefighters and 15 fire engines were dispatched, and the situation was brought under control in about two hours, according to the Panyu Safety Supervision Bureau.

A small amount of hydrogen chloride, a toxic gas, has been detected in the air in neighboring areas, and evacuated residents have yet to return home.

Around 6,000 people were evacuated Thursday after an explosion at a chemical plant near the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.
The accident occurred in the afternoon at the Futian Chemical Company in Panyu district, local news agency said.

Residents were evacuated after “a small amount” of toxic hydrogen chloride and sodium gas was detected in the air following the blast.

As of 7:30 PM Thursday, the gas dispersed and was no threat to people, according to an environmental monitoring worker.

The explosion of factory buildings occurred at around 2:30 PM. Firefighters continued to spray foam to the plant an hour after the blast. Almost all of the windows of a 5-story dormitory next to the plant were broken.

The blast caused no casualty for the chemical plant had not been operating since last year.

A local resident told reporter that he smelled pungent odor from time to time which gave him a headache and a sore throat.

Safety supervision bureau said the blast might be caused by human negligence.

Fourteen people died Saturday after a chemical plant explosion in the eastern Chinese city of Xintai, state media reported.

The state-run news Xinhua news agency reported the explosion occurred Saturday afternoon at plant that produces melamine, a chemical used in in dishware, counter tops, whiteboards and other products.

Four people died immediately, Xinhua said, citing officials in Xintai. Fifteen people were taken to the hospital, where 10 more died, the agency said.

The explosion occurred as workers were performing maintenance on a condenser, Xinhua said, citing the government statement. The exact cause of the blast is under investigation.

HOHHOT - One was killed and 6 others injured in a blast-triggered fire on Thursday at a chemical plant in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, local authorities said.
Another man was still missing in the blast, which occurred at 10:50 am at a workshop of Inner Mongolia Yihua Chemical Industry Co, Ltd, located at the Wuda District in the city of Wuhai, said a spokesman with the district government.
"The fire is under effective control," he said.
Initial investigation showed improper operation by the workers was mainly attributed to the blast.

EIJING -(Dow Jones)- A fire broke out late Friday at a China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (SNP) refinery in Shanghai, but no casualties were reported, the official Xinhua news agency reported Saturday, citing municipal police.

The fire occurred around 10:30 p.m. local time in the coking unit of Sinopec's Gaoqiao refinery, which has the capacity to process about 250,000 barrels a day of crude oil.

Xinhua didn't mention whether there was any impact on production. The fire was under control by 11:50 p.m., and the cause is being investigated, it said.

BEIJING, September 13, 2011 (AFP) - Three people were killed and another three wounded in an explosion at a chemical plant in east China on Tuesday, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The cause of the explosion at the privately owned plant in Leping city, Jiangxi province, is not yet known and no leaks of liquid or toxic gas were detected, Xinhua said, citing the city government.

The Jiangwei High Technology Co., which was previously state-owned, produces nontoxic polyvinyl alcohol, which is commonly used in the manufacture of glue and acetic acid, a food additive that can be corrosive when concentrated.

The injured were taken to hospital in nearby Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi, the local government told Xinhua.

SHANGHAI, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Fire fighters extinguished the flames at a Shanghai chemical plant Friday morning, about 10 hours after the fire broke out, local authorities said.

No casualties were reported in the accident, Shanghai's fire prevention bureau said in a press release.

The fire broke out at about 11 p.m. at an alkene production facility in Shanghai Secco Petrochemical Co., Ltd., it said.

It said fire fighters worked overnight to prevent the flames from spreading to other facilities.

All visible flames were extinguished by 9 a.m.

No apparent harm was done to the local environment, according to the air quality evaluation report released by Shanghai's environmental protection bureau at the factory site Friday morning.

The general manager of the Dalian Petrochemical Company of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), a leading on-shore oil producer, was removed from his post Tuesday following the branch's second fire in two months, a company source said Wednesday.

Jiang Fan, former general manager of Dalian Petrochemical Company in Liaoning Province's coastal city of Dalian, was replaced by Leng Shengjun, former general manager of Daqing Refining & Chemical Company of CNPC, according to its official website.

The Dalian branch has been the scene of two fires in the past two months. The latest incident occurred when a diesel oil tank caught fire on Monday. Fortunately, no one was injured or killed in the accident.

On July 16, a fire was triggered by a leak in a distillation device at the Dalian branch. No one was killed or injured as a result.

The CNPC also decided that the corporation would set up its own investigation team to assist with an on-going investigation conducted by the municipal work safety watchdog, according to its website.

(AP)  SHANGHAI — Firefighters fought three hours to put out a blaze Monday at a major petrochemical refinery in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian, the second fire in two months at the facility, police and the company said.

State-owned PetroChina, China's biggest oil and gas producer, said the fire occurred in a diesel tank containing 800 tons of fuel at its subsidiary Dalian Petrochemical, but any that escaped had been channeled into an emergency storage pool.

Nearly 300 firefighters and 65 fire engines were summoned to battle the blaze, caused by an explosion in a pipeline linking two fuel tanks, police said in a statement. Some firefighters remained to guard against any further trouble, given the risk of explosion due to nearby tanks of aviation fuel, liquefied petroleum gas and other materials, it said.

A fire in mid-July at the same refinery forced the company to suspend operations of some of its units.

Dalian was the site of China's biggest known oil spill, when a pipeline explosion put at least 1,500 tons (461,790 gallons) of oil into the sea in July 2010.

The city recently saw protests by some 12,000 people demanding the removal of a chemical factory making paraxylene. In the face of such a rare but bold show of public dissatisfaction, the authorities agreed to move the plant out of the downtown area.

The protest was mounted after waves from Tropical Storm Muifa last week broke a dike guarding the plant and raised fears that floodwaters could release toxic chemicals.

Recent oil spills in Bohai Bay, offshore from Dalian, have further raised concern over environmental risks from the region's energy and chemicals industries, with government officials threatening legal action against ConocoPhillips China, which operates wells in the affected oil field with another big state energy company, CNOOC.

CNOOC's refinery at Daya Bay, in Huizhou, halted operations in several of its production lines after a fire broke out in its aromatics unit on July 11.

PetroChina's statements, posted on its website, emphasized that Monday's fire did not cause any pollution. Local government officials refused comment and calls to the refinery went unanswered.

DALIAN - The controversial Fujia Chemical Plant in Liaoning Province, which had been ordered to shut down, initiated stop-production procedures on Monday, authorities with Dalian municipal government said Tuesday.
Although the order to stop production "immediately" was issued on Sunday by municipal authorities, the intricacies of the production cycle meant that it could not stop directly due to safety concerns.
With the stop-production procedures now in effect, no more raw materials have gone onto the production line.
The government will release the final decision about the plant in one or two days, the authorities added.
The plant is a producer of PX, a carcinogenic petrochemical used to create raw materials for the production of polyester film and fabric.
The PX plant is not horrible in itself but the critical issue is that the management, quality safeguard and risk control departments in the plant in Dalian are far below standards, said petrochemical industry insiders on the condition of anonymity.

HANGZHOU - Seven people were injured in a fire at a chemical plant in East China's Zhejiang province, local sources said Monday.

The fire engulfed the three-story New Oriental chemical plant in the province's city of Taizhou at approximately 3:05 am after an explosion took place inside the plant.

Seven workers were injured in the first, with four remaining in serious condition. The workers are being treated at a local hospital.

The fire was put out two hours after igniting and the cause of the explosion is under investigation.

Supermarkets in the southwestern Chinese city of Mianyang were facing shortages of bottled water Wednesday amid panic buying after water supply from a river was contaminated by waste from a manganese plant.

Government fire trucks were also delivering water to communities after local authorities learned that heavy rains washed waste into the Fujiang River from the Xichuan Minjiang Electrolytic Manganese Plant in the county of Songpan.
The river accounts for 70 percent of the drinking water supply of Mianyang communities.
Tests of water samples from the river showed there is 1.888 milligrams of manganese per liter and 3.349 milligrams of ammonia and nitrogen per liter. The safe level is 0.1 and 0.5 milligrams, respectively.

Some villagers were sickened Wednesday evening by gas leak after a chemical plant fire in north China's Hebei Province, but exact number of casualties remains unknown, local officials said Thursday.

The accident occurred Wednesday evening when a benzenesulfonic hydroxide workshop of Hebei Jianxin Chemical Co., Ltd. caught fire at Lingang Economic and Technological Development Zone in Cangzhou City of the province, according to the management committee of the zone.

No deaths or injuries was reported at the site. But some residents at a downstream village named Xinzhuangzi developed such symptoms as chest tension and nauseating after they inhaled acid smog from the plant. Some villagers have been hospitalized for treatment and observation, but exact number of them is yet to be known.

Experts said that the fire, which was put out at around 9:00 p.m. Wednesday, was ignited by nitrobenzene created after sulfur trioxide leaked from the chemical workshop met humid air.

NANNING - Eight people were killed and six other injured after a truck carrying flammable chemicals exploded in a parking lot Tuesday afternoon in southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, local authorities said.

The blast occurred at around 6:30 pm in the Litang township of Binyang county when workers were unloading the truck which carried flammable chemicals including potassium chlorate and carbon powder, said a spokesman with the county government's information office.

A preliminary investigation showed that workers' carelessness may have triggered the explosion, said the spokesman.

The fire from the blast engulfed over 20 cars at the carpark, which used to be a gas station, said the spokesman.

(Reuters) - Thousands of people in eastern China are without tap water after a spill from a factory may have dumped toxic chemicals into a river, state media said on Wednesday.

The spill comes just a week after the Environment Ministry said one in six major Chinese rivers are so polluted the water is unfit even for farmland.

The factory in the wealthy province of Zhejiang is suspected of contaminating the Tiaoxi River with chemicals including benzene and alkene, the official Xinhua news agency cited a government statement as saying.

"The pollution has disrupted the operation of two downstream water treatment facilities and affected tap water supplies in Hangzhou's Yuhang district, which has a population of about 848,400," Xinhua said.

Two water treatment plants in the towns of Pingyao and Liangzhu stopped working on Sunday because of the spill and have not restarted, the report added.

BEIJING, China - Authorities say a blast at a chemical plant in eastern China has killed three people and injured eight others.
The government of Zibo city in Shandong province said in a statement Sunday that police were investigating the cause of the explosion at a chemical plant owned by Shandong Baoyuan Chemical Co. Ltd.
The statement says the Saturday night blast killed two people at the site while a third person died later at a hospital. Eight other people who suffered slight injuries were being treated at a hospital.
Industrial accidents are common in China due to lax regulations and safety controls.

Explosion and fire at Foxconn Chengdu facility
On Friday, production was suspended at a Foxconn factory in Chengdu City (China) following an explosion and a subsequent fire. 3 workers were killed and 15 sustained injuries, media reports state.

The manufacturing facility recently started iPad2 production. Events now raised concerns about possible disruptions of supply chain and delivery schedules. (Foxconn manufactures around 30% of iPad2 in Chengdu; main production is still located in Shenzhen.) The explosion is said to have occurred in a building that house coating lines and is used to store some chemical materials.

A chemical tank of a Sinopec plant in Guangzhou exploded at 13:20 on Tuesday, reportedly injuring at least four, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily.

Billows of smoke were seen rising from the desulfurization area of the plant, where fire engines and ambulances rushed for rescue.

One of the evacuated workers said the gas level in the working area exceeded the maximum allowable amount since Monday and fire trucks were stationed in the plant in case of a fire breakout.

The past 24 hours has seen a downright disturbing series of explosions and fires in factories, plants, and mines across China:
A fire in a four-story clothing factory in Beijing early this morning killed 17 and injured at least 24 in yet another tragedy caused by illegal construction practices. Those killed were all migrant workers.
Rescue workers are scrambling to reach eight miners trapped underground after an explosion rocked their facility in Guizhou this morning.
An explosion in a pesticide plant in Guangxi caused three known injuries. Fires engulfed 3,000 meters and two warehouses. Two harmful chemicals have been confirmed on site, and authorities have cordoned off the factory awaiting further tests.
Another two people were killed when an oil tank exploded in a factory in Wenzhou, Zhejiang. Welding and oil do not mix.
Investigations are now underway to determine the cause of an explosion that killed nine in a chemical plant in Heilongjiang province last Wednesday.

DAQING, Heilongjiang (Xinhua) – At least nine people were killed in an explosion at a chemical plant in Lamadian Town of Daqing City in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province Wednesday night, local officials said Thursday morning.

The explosion and fire occurred at about 10:10 p.m. Wednesday at a three-storey building at Fuxin Chemical Plant located in Lamadian Town of Ranghulu District in Daqing.

Fourteen people were inside the building when the accident happened, local government said.

Nine people died on the scene while the other five fled the building.

The fire had been extinguished by firefighters, according to Xinhua's on-the-spot reporter.

Local environmental protection authority said air surrounding the plant had not gone beyond the criteria for industrial waste gas emissions and would not affect residents and the environment nearby.

According to a preliminary investigation, the fire was caused by the volatilization of a great amount of methanol gas to a level that might lead to the blast.

Toxic acid leaks from E China chemical company
istockAnalyst.com (press release)
Local police, fire fighters and environmental protection personnel have
rushed to the site to control and clean up the leak. The cause of the
leakage has not been found yet. Hydrogen fluoride is a chemical compound
used mainly for industrial purposes, ...

An explosion at a chemical plant in Zhejiang Province that local residents demanded be shut down years ago left two workers injured Saturday.

The explosion occurred at around 8:50 pm at the Yue'an Chemical Plant in Panshi township, Yueqing, blowing up a boiler and causing colorless ammonia gas to leak, China News Service (CNS) reported Sunday.

"When I heard the huge explosion, I thought it was an earthquake," a local resident surnamed Zhou, who lived some two kilometers away from the site, told the Global Times Sunday.

At least two were injured Saturday after a boiler blast caused the leak of ammonia gas at a chemical plant in east China's Zhejiang Province, rescuers said.

The accident occurred at around 8:50 p.m. at a local chemical plant in Panshi Town of Yueqing City.

The injured had been rushed to hospital, rescuers said.

Many workers were working when the accident happened. Rescuers sped off towards the scene to put out the fire and were searching the site for possible victims.

Authorities in Jiangsu Province are holding and questioning a local resident suspected of spreading a rumor that a local chemical factory was about to explode.

The rumor caused four deaths Thursday.

The deaths, in Xiangshui county of Jiangsu, occurred during a massive fleeing early Thursday morning after residents were told that an explosion would take place at the Dahe Chemical Enterprise plant.

The rumor was spread among residents at 2 am, and by 3 am people had thronged the street and began running, media reported.

More than 20 people were escaping on a three-wheel agricultural vehicle when they and the vehicle went into the river, killing four of the occupants.

The county government said at a Thursday press conference that the rumor was false and announced that neither a gas leak nor an explosion had occurred.

By 6 am Thursday, residents had returned home and the rumor had stopped spreading, the local government said in the press release.

HARBIN, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- A gas leak was the likely cause of a chemical plant blast Thursday afternoon in Tsitsihar City of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, local authorities said Friday.

The explosion ripped through a nitrogen fertilizer workshop at around 5 p.m. Thursday in the chemical plant of Heilongjiang HeiHua Corporation, according to a spokesman with the local work and safety bureau.

Two workers were injured and rushed to hospital, said the spokesman.

There was no damage to the environment, according to test results from the city environmental protection bureau.

More than 30 people were hurt following an explosion at PetroChina Co.’s Fushun refining complex in northwestern Liaoning province, the official Xinhua News Agency said, without citing anyone. No deaths were reported.

A fire that started after the explosion has been brought under control, Xinhua said. Mao Zefeng, PetroChina’s Beijing- based spokesman, said the country’s biggest oil and gas producer is investigating and couldn’t provide more details.

The explosion is the second in less than five months at Fushun complex, after local news website lnd.com.cn and Caijing Online reported a blast at the plant in September. The incidents trailed a series of industrial accidents last year, including a blast at an abandoned chemical factory in Nanjing city in July that killed at least six people and wounded more than 300.

A chemical leak sickened 62 people Thursday at a pharmaceutical plant in east China's Anhui Province, the local government said Friday.

The victims, all of whom were workers of the Wanbei Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd in Suzhou City, fell ill after inhaling fumes from the highly toxic solid phosgene, also known as triphosgene or BTC, that leaked from a laboratory at around 4:30 p.m. Thursday, said Zhu Hai, an official in charge of the city government's emergency response office.

Zhu said 37 workers were still being treated in hospital as of Friday afternoon, of whom eight were in critical condition.

Chinese investigators report finding no contamination following two explosions at a Shandong Yanggu Zhongshi Pharmaceutical factory in Liaocheng City, about 600 miles northwest of Shanghai. Seven people suffered injuries, the worst of which appears to be a broken leg.

The first explosion took place at 5:40 a.m. local time Wednesday. The second occurred at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, producing "a large fireball and thick smoke," according to local press reports. Firefighters still tending the first explosion were waiting for it to burn out when the second blast occurred. The chemical aniline fueled the second explosion.

Air quality tests for benzene, xylene, amine and hydrogen sulfide yielded findings within acceptable levels as far as a half mile from the plant. Some 8,000 people had been evacuated from nearby villages.

BEIJING -- An explosion caused by illegally stored chemicals has killed seven people and injured 37 at an Internet cafe in southwest China, state media and the government said Sunday.

The blast occurred late Saturday in a shop next to the cafe, located under a bridge, the Kaili city government in Guizhou province said in a statement. The official Xinhua News Agency said nine of those hurt were seriously injured.

Packs of highly concentrated aluminum chloride and sodium nitrite, which are hazardous, were stacked up against a wall in a shop that sold chemicals adjacent to the Internet cafe, the report said. It did not say how the chemicals were ignited.

Police have detained a person named Wu Zhanzhi for illegal possession of the chemicals, while the cafe's boss and manager were also being held by police for questioning, it said.

The explosion was so powerful it shattered the windows of nearby residential buildings, Xinhua said.

Three people were poisoned in a chemical spill after a tanker carrying a toxic chemical and two trucks smashed into each other Sunday noon in east China's Zhejiang Province, local fire authorities said Monday.

A tanker carrying 30 tonnes of isopropylamine was involved in a crash with two trucks Sunday noon in the countryside of Quzhou City, which resulted in the chemical leaking out, vaporizing, and slightly poisoning three workers at a nearby factory, said Hu Xiaofan with the city's fire brigade.

The workers were rushed to hospital, along with the two truck drivers who sustained physical injures in the crash, Xu said.

Firefighters evacuated the factory and the hole in the tanker was blocked about two hours later. The chemical leak did not have a major affect on the environment, Xu said.

The flammable and toxic isopropylamine is mainly used to produce pesticide.

BEIJING - AN EXPLOSION at a chemical factory in northern China has killed four and injured 37, state media reported on Sunday, citing local authorities.

The blast occurred on Saturday night in the city of Jinzhong, in northern Shanxi province, at the Yushe Chemical Co, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing a provincial government statement.

The cause of the explosion was still under investigation, the report said, adding firefighters worked through the night to put out the resulting fire.

The factory produced an array of chemicals ranging from common food additives to compounds used in making plastics and paper, according to the company website.

Two of the injured were in serious condition, the report said.

In China an average of 187 people were killed in work-related accidents on each day in the first half of this year, the government has said. -- AFP

An explosion at a China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) oil storage terminal in Yunnan province, south west China, on 15 October was apparently caused by the ignition of residual oil in an oil tank while the workers were welding it.

The oil storage is owned by Sinopec but had been rent to a local private operator.

Four workers were wounded in the blaze and hospitalised. Twenty-four fire engines rushed to the scene.

A fire has engulfed a chemical plant in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing as the country suffers from many fatal industrial accidents.


The blaze broke out at about 7:40 a.m. on Wednesday, China's Xinhua news agency said.

Thick black smoke could be seen over the area and witnesses reported the sound of an explosion at the site.

Firefighters are on the scene trying to bring the flames under control.

It's still not clear if anyone was killed or injured in the incident.

China suffers from such industrial accidents, and the government has given top priority to industrial safety to detect and eliminate hidden disasters waiting-to-happen.

Four workers were wounded in a blaze after an oil storage exploded in southwest China's city of Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, Friday night, a local official said.

The explosion occurred in an industrial zone located at the east suburbs of Kunming at about 7 p.m., said Wen Zhiping, an official of the industrial zone.

Twenty four fire engines rushed to the scene. The blaze was put out at about 8 p.m..

The injured are being hospitalized, doctors said, adding that the wounds are not life-threatening.

An initial probe shows that the explosion was caused by the ignition of residual oil in an oil tank while the workers were welding it.

The oil storage was owned by China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, or Sinopec, one of the country's largest oil refiners, but had been rent to a local private operator.

An explosion in a Chinese coal mine has killed 20 workers and trapped over 30 underground in Yuzhou City.

According to Xinhua news agency, the blast happened at about 6 a.m. on Saturday morning.

Rescuers have retrieved 20 bodies, and are still searching for other miners.

The mine is owned by Pingyu Coal and Electric Co. Ltd., a company jointly established by Zhong Ping Energy Chemical Group and China Power Investment Corp.he China blast comes shortly after the world was riveted by the Chile's dramatic rescue of 33 trapped miners after they spent over two months in the collapsed San Jose copper and gold mine. (ANI)

An estimated eight tons of strong acid leaked from a tank on an abandoned factory yard and flew into sewer lines, causing billows of red gases. The accident got under control after two hours' efforts by local fire-fighting and environmental staffers.

An explosion at a chemical factory belonging to China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), located in Fushun, Liaoning Province around noon on Tuesday has left two people injured. But no deaths have been reported.

Black smoke was seen billowing from the factory near the east gate of the compound.

CNPC is China's largest oil and gas producer and supplier, and the No.3 petrochemical factory was condoned off soon after the explosion, according to Liaoshen Evening News, a local daily.

Witnesses said that windows as far as 150 meters away from the blast were shattered.

China in recent weeks has suffered a series of industrial disasters, including one of the largest oil spills in its history.  Authorities have taken measures, some of them harsh, to prevent accidents.  But analysts say safety standards and punishments for those who flout them are too weak.

In the port city of Dalian, China is still cleaning up an oil spill after an explosion last month. Workers, after off-loading oil from a tanker ship, used a cleaning agent inappropriately, igniting fuel and sending thousands of barrels of oil gushing into the bay.

Chinese authorities quickly mobilized volunteers to clean up what they say was about 1,500 tons of oil.  Last week they declared the clean-up a victory that kept the slick from spreading to international waters.

Inaccurate estimates

But an American expert visited the area last week and says the official estimate is ridiculously low and that oil has likely spread hundreds of kilometers, perhaps as far as North Korea.

Rick Steiner, an independent marine conservation consultant, estimates at least 60,000 tons of oil spilled into the sea.

China sent hundreds of officials to assist people hurt in a gas-pipeline blast in the city of Nanjing and to retrieve 3,000 barrels of hazardous chemicals that washed into a river in Jilin as authorities grappled with the latest in a string of industrial accidents.

The explosion at an abandoned factory in the eastern city of Nanjing killed at least 12 people and left another 15 seriously injured, state broadcaster China Central Television reported late yesterday. Workers demolishing buildings at the Nanjing No. 4 Plastics Factory damaged a propylene pipeline, causing the blast, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

“It felt like an earthquake,” said Chen Ming, a resident who lives less than 500 meters from the site of the explosion. “Things fell from the shelves and hit me. I ran out of my house and found everyone was standing outside.”

The accidents in Nanjing and Jilin yesterday followed an acid leak at Zijin Mining Group Co.’s copper and gold mines in the eastern province of Fujian and an oil spill in northeastern China that shut beaches and a port this month. China’s work safety administration last week ordered intensified measures at factories, mines and construction sites to prevent accidents.

An explosion at an abandoned chemical factory in Nanjing city in eastern China killed at least six people and injured more than 300, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The blast at 10:10 a.m. local time today was sparked by a gas leak from a pipeline running through the factory, Xinhua said, citing local media that it didn’t identify. Buildings and vehicles within a 100-meter (109-yard) radius were badly damaged and at least 50 people were seriously hurt, Xinhua reported.

The explosion is the country’s third major industrial accident this month, following an acid leak from Zijin Mining Group Co.’s copper and gold mines into a river in the eastern province of Fujian and an oil spill in northeastern China that had shut beaches and a port. The walls and roof of the factory had collapsed and firefighters were trying to douse a fire, photographs on Xinhua’s website show.

The supply of gas feeding the ruptured pipeline has been cut, and the fire following the explosion is now under control, Xinhua said.

The air in the area still smells of gas, the State Administration of Work Safety said in its report, citing eye- witness accounts.

As far away as 1 kilometer from the blast site, broken glass bits were strewn along streets, according to a China National Radio reporter.

CHANGCHUN/HARBIN, July 29 (Xinhua) -- More than 1,000 containers containing explosive chemicals were washed into a major river in northeast China's Jilin Province Wednesday, and 350 of them have been recovered, local authorities said late Wednesday night.
The accident occurred around 10 a.m. in Yongji County, in Jilin City, after rain-triggered flood water swept the containers into the Songhuajiang River, according to the publicity department of Jilin City Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Some of the containers, from a local chemical plant, each contained 160 kg of trimethyl chloro silicane, a colorless flammable liquid with a pungent odor, said the department.

The chemical would give off hydrochloric acid after reacting with water,
...
The 1,900-km Songhuajiang River is the largest tributary of the Heilongjiang River, a border river between China and Russia.

At least five persons were killed and four injured in a chemical plant explosion in Xingyi in South West China's Guizhou Province on Thursday morning.

The China Daily and the Xinhua news agency reported that the accident took place at about 9 a.m. at the plant located in the Bouyei-Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Qianxinan.

Chen Gang, director of the prefecture government's emergency response office, was quoted as saying: "The explosion occurred when workers were repairing chemical material pipelines."

The injured have been admitted to a hospital.

"We are investigating the cause of the accident," Gang added. (ANI)

A blast occurred at a chemical lab in northeast China's Liaoning Province Wednesday, causing no casualties.

The explosion happened at a laboratory warehouse of the Dalian Chemical Physics Institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Dalian City at around 1:40 p.m., said a man in charge of the security of the institute.

He said the blast happened when hydrogen peroxide in the warehouse was under high temperature.

No one was hurt in the blast, said the man.

Police have cordoned off the area and are looking into the accident.

The Changping district government ordered a thorough inspection on all companies and factories producing hazardous articles Tuesday after a chemical explosion killed one person and injured at least 11 Sunday evening.
A deadly blast occurred at the Duocai Printing Co., Ltd in Beiqijia township at around 6 pm Sunday. Preliminary investigations showed that the explosion was caused by a chemical spill, which caused a wall to collapse that killed a female worker and started a fire covering 1,000 square meters. Xinhua reported 11 people were injured, while some other media said that 17 were wounded.
Some workers said the female worker surnamed Liang, was from Hebei Province. One of the injured was seriously burnt and was treated in the ICU.
Police said the explosion was caused by human error, but till now, no one in the plant has commented. The company has been forced to close for an overhaul and its legal representative has been called in for questioning.

Beijing, Apr 5 (PTI) Two people were killed and a person was injured when an explosion occurred in a chemical plant in north China's Chifeng City following which as many as 700 residents in the proximity of the site had to be evacuated.
The accident occurred when a high-pressure storage tank containing silicon tetrachloride exploded in Chifeng City in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region during the weekend, Xinhua news agency reported.
The blast in the Shengsen Silicon Technology Development Co, Ltd also injured another person.
Following the blast nearly 700 residents living nearby were evacuated to safer areas.
The injured has been confirmed to be in a stable condition in hospital, according to local authorities.
People returned to their homes after local environmental authorities announced that the atmospheric conditions in the town were normal.

QINGDAO - An explosion triggered a fire in a chemical plant in an east China city, leaving three dead, one seriously injured, and another unaccounted for, local authorities said Friday.
The explosion occurred at 2:40 pm in Haiyi Specialty Chemicals Co Ltd in Qingdao, a coastal city in Shandong province, said an official of the Qingdao municipal government.
The fire was now under control but not yet out, the official said.

SHANGHAI (February 24, 2010) -- A fire at a recycling center and apparent plastic product manufacturer in Shanghai has killed six workers and injured eight, according to Chinese media.
The fire in at the Yuesheng recycling center in the city’s Qingpu District started on the afternoon of Feb. 21, after an apparent explosion in a chemical container made of plastics and metal during the waste treatment process, media reported.
Chinese state-run broadcaster CCTV reported that the center was also a small manufacturer of plastic products that had “collected a large amount of flammable substances.”
A fire at a plastics recycling plant in 2008 in the southern city of Shenzhen killed 15 workers. Shenzhen city authorities said at the time that the factory illegally built workers’ living quarters above waste materials.
A fire at another plastics recycling factory in the nearby city of Dongguan, Guangdong province, killed 13 people in January 2007.

Fire spurs citywide inspection campaign
THE city will check potential safety problems hidden in businesses one by one, after a deadly fire roared through a recycling center in Qingpu District, local authorities said yesterday.
Mayor Han Zheng said at the meeting there could be 300 mild accidents, 300 accidents that failed to happen and 1,000 potential safety problems behind each severe accident.
The city should aim for all businesses across the city to be safe places by March 1, officials at the conference said.
The recycling center that caught fire on Sunday and killed six people and injured another eight did not have a license to store and deal with flammable chemical substances.
The fire was triggered by an explosion of chemical containers during the waste-treatment process, an investigation showed.

Fire kills at least 6 people at recycling centre in Shanghai: reports
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (CP) – 19 hours ago
BEIJING — Chinese state media say a fire at a recycling centre in Shanghai has killed six people.
The state-run news Web site Eastday.com says the fire occurred Sunday afternoon at the Yuesheng recycling centre in Qingpu, a district in Shanghai.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported eight people were injured.
The report cited an unnamed city government spokesman saying the fire apparently was triggered by an explosion of a chemical container made of plastics and metal during the waste treatment process.
Local authorities refused to comment when contacted by phone.