A chemical plant in Jiangsu Province was rocked by a huge explosion on Thursday afternoon, leaving 78 dead more than 100 severely injured according to the local authority.
The blast occurred at the Tianjiayi Chemical Co., Ltd. in Xiangshui County, Yancheng City around 2 pm. The China Earthquake Administration also reported a magnitude 2.2 earthquake at 2:48 pm, which was suspected to have been caused by the explosion.
Video footage circulating on social media platforms show a huge fireball ripping through the plant and people injured by flying debris as they attempt to flee the carnage. The explosion even shattered windows of a nearby school and residential buildings.
According to a news account released by the Beijing Youth Daily, it was believed that the explosion, occurring in a production facility at the plant, was caused by the ignition of benzene.
Established in April 2007, Tianjiayi specializes in the manufacture of chemical raw materials and chemical products like hydroxybenzoic acid and anisole. In a letter[1] issued in February last year, the State Administration of Work Safety listed 13 safety problems of the plant, including insufficient safety knowledge and lack of management expertise, unsound SOPs for production facilities, and substandard operations. Moreover, it has also been found that the company received several administrative punishments in the past, mostly pertaining to solid waste management and environmental protection.
This is not the first time a chemical plant explosion has caused devastation in China. In August 2015, a series of explosions ripped apart warehouses storing dangerous chemicals in Tianjin, killing more than 160 people, in July 2018, a blast at a chemical plant in southwest Sichuan Province left 19 dead and 12 injured and in November 2018, 23 people were killed and 22 others injured in an explosion near a chemical plant in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province.
ChemLinked will continue to follow up. (An initial version of the news account was released on March 21, and ChemLinked has been contantly updating the number of casualties and injuries.)
