Chemical plant explosion in China: one confirmed dead

Rescuers found remains of one of the six workers who were missing in a chemical plant explosion Sunday in Jilin City, northeast China's Jilin Province. The other five workers remain missing, sources with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) Jilin Petrochemical Company said Monday. Local residents and students of two colleges neighboring upon the chemical plant have returned to their places of residence from an emergency evacuation conducted shortly after the explosions.

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An official from Jilin Chemical Industry College, one of the two affected colleges in the accident, said classes would resume on Monday afternoon.

The blasts took place at about 1:45 p.m. Sunday with a workshop in the No. 101 Chemical Plant under the CNPC Jilin Petrochemical Company based in Jilin City, some 100 km east to Changchun, the provincial capital.

The fire caused by chemicals jam and improper treatment to the problem was extinguished around 4 a.m. Monday. No toxic gas was detected in the air of the affected district, according to corporate sources.

A working team, led by Wang Yilin, deputy general manager of CNPC Co. Ltd who is in charge of work safety, rushed to Jilin City to offer guidance in the rescue operation.

Witnesses say dozens of people have been hurt in a series of explosions at a chemical plant in northeastern China.

The official government news agency says the blasts Sunday afternoon occurred over a period of an hour. More than ten-thousand people who live nearby have been evacuated for fear of more explosions.

A spokesman at a local government office says only that "leaders" are directing rescue work at the plant.

A woman who answered the telephone at the Jilin Chemical Industry Co Hospital, operated by the main petroleum company, said about 40 to 50 people received treatment on Sunday. She hung up when asked for details.

At the Jilin Central Hospital, a doctor in the emergency department said "several people with minor injuries" were brought in.

They appeared to have been outside the plant and were injured by glass shards, said the doctor, who would not give his name. A man who answered the telephone at the No 101 plant and refused to give his name said he didn't know if any employees were in the facility at the time of the explosions, reports Xinxua. I.L.