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CHINA-EXPLOSION-ACCIDENT
Blast at Chinese chemical plant kills 19
BEIJING, July 13, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – An explosion at a chemical plant in
southwest China left 19 dead and injured another 12, authorities said Friday,
the latest industrial accident in a country where lax regulations often lead
to tragedy.
The blast occurred at 6:30 pm Thursday night at an industrial park in
Sichuan province’s Yibin city, according to a statement on the website of the
local work safety administration.
The injured had been taken to hospital and were in stable condition,
county officials said, adding that the resulting fire had been put out.
Photos on a local news site showed what appeared to be the burned out
shell of a building surrounded by rubble.
The company that owns the building where the fire occurred is a chemical
manufacturer named Hengda, according to the official Xinhua news service.
China has been rocked by several industrial accidents in recent years.
A septic tank explosion last November destroyed a wide swathe of a light
industrial area in Ningbo, just south of Shanghai.
In 2015, giant chemical blasts in a container storage facility killed at
least 165 people in the northern port city of Tianjin.
The explosions caused more than $1 billion in damage and sparked
widespread anger at a perceived lack of transparency over the accident’s
causes and its environmental impact.
A government inquiry eventually recommended 123 people be punished.
Tianjin’s mayor at the time of the accident was sentenced to 12 years in
prison for graft in September.
BSS/AFP/RY/1350 hrs