A chemical plant explosion in Sichuan
Province and a factory fire in Shanghai Municipality yesterday
have left ten dead, 21 injured and two missing. The same day, an
investigation into a hotel fire in Guangdong
Province earlier this month found the cause to have been an
electrical fault.
Seven people were confirmed dead with eight others injured and
two still unaccounted for after a detonator explosion at a chemical
plant in Hongya County of Meishan City in Sichuan yesterday
morning, local police said today.
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Three of the eight wounded were seriously injured and remain
hospitalized in the provincial capital of Chengdu. The blast
leveled a row of bungalows and police are clearing up the site and
searching for the two missing persons.
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Preliminary investigations suggest the cause was an operational
error while workers were fixing detonators, according to police
sources. There were about 13,000 detonators when the accident took
place.
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The plant, Hongya Qingyijiang Chemical Co. Ltd., was built in 1996
to produce mirabilite, or Glauber's salt, in Hongchuan
Township.?
In Shanghai, three workers were killed and 13 others injured in
a fire at a garment factory in Songjiang District, local police
said.
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The blaze started at around 4:00 AM yesterday in a dormitory of
Linjianniao Garment Company, killing one at the scene and injuring
15 others, and was extinguished by 4:43 AM. Two of those wounded
later died and the rest hospitalized.
The Shanghai Morning Post reported that the municipal
fire department said the emergency exit had been locked and people
did not know how to escape in the event of a fire.
"The boss of the factory locks the exit of the employees'
dormitory every night against theft," said 21-year-old Huang
Cuiping who was hospitalized. She jumped from a third floor window
and sustained fractures to her thigh and lumbar vertebrae.
The factory boss's mother was killed on site by asphyxiation
whilst trying to unlock the emergency exit, according to the
newspaper.
Fire fighters said many workers know little about how to deal
with a fire: "If they had climbed down by connecting and twisting
bed sheets to ropes or catching the ropes thrown up by fire
fighters, the consequences would not have been so serious," they
told the paper.
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Both incidents are being investigated further.
Also yesterday, the State Council investigation team into the
hotel fire that claimed 31 lives in Shantou City, Guangdong on June
10 said it was caused by an electrical short circuit. They called
rumors of arson "groundless."
The fire broke out at the city's Huanan Hotel at noon, engulfing
the top three floors of the four-storey building. It took three
hours to extinguish and left 21 injured.
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The investigation report said it was caused by sparks from
electrical wires on the ceiling of a second floor room that kindled
combustible goods nearby.
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The hotel is managed by a Hong Kong company.
(Xinhua News Agency, Shanghai Morning Post, June 21,
2005)