On Friday, the death toll in the great blast at a chemical plant in China move up to 47. The President Xi Jinping demanded all possible efforts in order to carry out search and rescue operations to secure more people as soon as possible.
The blast held on Thursday after a fire in a fertilizer factory which was in a chemical industrial park in Yancheng, Jiangsu province, as per to the government of Xiangshui county.
Forty Seven people have been reported to be killed due to the blast and a additional 90 people are seriously injured, reported state-run China Daily.
President Xi, also the general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and as well as chairman of the Central Military Commission, demanded maximum efforts in order to search and rescue victims fast as possible.
Death Toll Soars to 47 in China Chemical Plant Blast, 98 Seriously Injured
President Xi, who is on his five-day tour of Europe, said that progressive efforts must be made to search for those who are trapped as well as the injured ones must be timely treated and on the other hand the relief work must be well carried out in order to retain social stability.
In the meantime, environment monitoring and early warning should be reinforced to stop environmental pollution as well as secondary calamities, he said.
The super blast affected about 16 nearby enterprises. Open fire has been put out and air pollution files are within the permitted range.
The Ministry of Emergency Management said that about 88 people have been saved from the site of the incident.
Few of the Eye-witnesses said that a number of workers were stuck after buildings were knocked down by the repercussion stated to be a slight shake produced by the blast which took place in a pesticide plant. The explosion also shattered windows of neighbouring residential houses.
As per the city’s environmental protection specialist, the blast had a destructive effect on the air quality in the chemical park and its nearby areas within a 500-meter range, but the strong winds are probable to lift the dense smoke.
Authorities on the other hand are investigating the real cause behind the accident and the detailed investigation is going on. Also, as per some news reports, an unspecified number of people were taken into police custody.
Also, last year in the month of November, a gas leak at a plant in the northern Chinese city of Zhangjiakou, which is also going to host the 2022 Winter Olympics killed about 24 people and almost injured 21 others. A report was also circulated by the local authorities last month but then it was revealed that the Chinese chemical firm in charge for that accident had covered the evidence and misrepresented investigators.
Past in the year 2015, China saw one of its most horrible industrial accidents when a massive chemical blasts held in the northern port city of Tianjin which killed at least 165 people. The blasts caused more than $1 billion in damage and flickered extensive anger at an apparent lack of transparency over the accident’s reasons and its environmental influence.
