An explosion on Monday at a steel plant in Anshan, Liaoning Province, killed 13 people and injured another 17. Photo: CFP
Rescuers have found another three bodies after a blast Monday night at a steel plant in Liaoning Province, bringing the death toll to 13. A senior official said that China is still facing a long period before frequent accidents caused by production safety failures will lessen.
A sand mould exploded at 11:30 pm Monday at a steel-casting workshop owned by Angang Heavy Machinery in the city of Anshan, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Ten people were found dead early Tuesday morning, and rescuers retrieved the bodies of three workers by Tuesday afternoon. Another 17 people were injured and are receiving medical treatment in hospital. Six of the injured are in critical condition, with two suffering severe burns across their bodies.
The mould, which was about 10 meters in diameter, exploded, with sand and concrete bursting out on workers finishing a steel ring around it, a worker who survived the blast told Xinhua.
Calls of the Global Times to the company and Anshan Hospital were met with refusals.
Yin Shan, a firefighter who participated in the rescue effort, said that firefighters found the area ablaze.
Song Jiachen, of the press center for the incident management team, said that after the blast, senior provincial officials directed the rescue. Work safety authorities are investigating and analyzing the cause of the accident.
Another source at a steel-casting plant in Liaoning said the accident could have occurred, because the mould had not fully solidified, which meant that when the molten steel was poured into the water, a large steam release could have caused the blast, he said.
This is not the first serious accident to take place at a steel factory in Liaoning. In April 2007, 32 workers were killed and six others injured after a steel ladle used for pouring molten steel sheared off from the iron rail linking it to the blast furnace in Qinghe Special Steel Corporation in Tieling.
The ladle, two meters in diameter and containing 30 tons of liquid, was moving into pouring position above a worktable when it fell, throwing white-hot molten metal at around 1,500 C into a room where workers had gathered as they changed shifts.
Huang Yi, spokesman of the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS), told the People's Daily Tuesday that the national production safety situation continues to improve but remains grave. He revealed that 2011 saw 15,655 accidents with 3,980 people killed, a slight drop on 2010. He added that as China is still undergoing a rapid increase in industrialization and urbanization, production safety accidents were likely to happen.