19 dead in blast at Chinese chemical plant

Another industrial accident in China


Afp July 13, 2018
This photo taken on July 12, 2018 shows firefighters working to put out a fire after an explosion at a chemical plant in Yibin in China's southwestern Sichuan province. The explosion left 19 dead and injured another 12, authorities said on July 13, the latest industrial accident in a country where lax regulations often lead to tragedy. PHOTO: AFP

BEIJING,: An explosion at a chemical plant in southwest China left 19 dead and injured another 12, authorities said on Friday, the latest industrial accident in a country where lax regulations often lead to tragedy.

The blast occurred at 6:30 pm on 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.

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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.

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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.

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