2nd China chemical plant blast kills one

Residents queue up for water in the northern Chinese city of Harbin yesterday as water supply was cut off for three days. A spillage of carcinogenic benzene severely polluted one of China's biggest rivers after explosion at a chemical plant in the neighbouring province of Jilin.. PHOTO: AFP

The explosion occurred around 11:00 am (0300 GMT) Thursday at the Yingte chemical plant in Chongqing municipality's Dianjiang county, the China Business News said.

One female worker died and three others were injured. Over 10,000 residents and students near the plant were evacuated, according to the report.

Two of the workers in a critical condition were suffering from benzene poisoning and burns, it said. Benzene is a carcinogen that can kill if someone suffers high exposure, even in small doses.

The report quoted a safety production official as saying the explosion happened as workers were mixing liquid chemicals in a container.

The first explosion happened near large quantities of barrels of benzene and sparked off a massive blast, the report said.

After a loud bang, a murky yellow cloud "blanketed the sky and the smell was choking," the newspaper said, quoting a local resident.

Officials ordered villagers to stop using local rivers and the local environmental bureau gathered local water and air samples for testing.

Chongqing and Dianjiang's environmental bureaux, as well as local safety authorities and the county government, refused to comment when contacted by AFP.

The factory did not have a valid safety production licence, the China Business News report said.

Meanwhile, millions of residents in China's Harbin city endured their third full day without running water on Friday due to a toxic chemical spill, as concerns grew over the long-term impacts of the disaster.

Harbin's taps remained turned off as an 80-kilometer (50-mile) slick of the carcinogen benzene and nitrobenzene that was 30 times above national safety levels flowed slowly through the city along the partially frozen Songhua river.

While the government tried to reassure Harbin's 3.8 million urban residents that water supplies would resume quickly and safely, many people were still evacuating the city and engineers were continuing to sink dozens of wells.