Villagers Reassess Lives After Fatal Explosion

Ding Yongshu still vividly remembers the night villagers fled their homes eight years ago after a rumor spread that there would be an explosion because chlorine had leaked at a chemical factory in a nearby industrial park in Xiangshui County, Jiangsu Province.

Like many others living near the park, the 58-year-old and five other family members from Shadang village fled in the early hours of Feb 10, 2011. "We took nothing. We just ran for our lives," Ding said.

Unlike 2011, a deadly explosion last week at the Jiangsu Tianjiayi Chemical Co at the same industrial park left villagers with no time to flee or even realize what had happened.

Since the disaster on March 21, which left 78 people dead and scores seriously injured, many villagers have started to reassess their relationship with the park, while government officials nationwide vowed to prevent a similar incident from happening.

Although the cause of the explosion has yet to be disclosed by the investigation team, it was partly due to the poor implementation of the "responsibility system" for production safety, as well as bureaucracy and "formalism in supervision," according to a statement released after a meeting of senior officials from Jiangsu on Saturday.

The explosion shattered all the windows in Ding's house in Shadang, about 2 kilometers from the Xiangshui Ecological Chemical Industrial Park.

"I've never heard such a loud explosion," Ding said on Saturday while removing window frames before replacements arrived.

He has worked at several chemical factories since 2005, three years after the industrial park was built in the county.

Pillar Industries

Residents said nearly every household in the village has family members working at the park, where slogans stating "Safety comes from staying alert and a lack of vigilance leads to accidents" can be seen throughout the complex.

Ding, whose farmland was acquired by factories at the park, said, "At first, we were pretty happy about the arrival of the new factories because we could find jobs there."

Chemical engineering, metallurgy and energy are the three pillar industries of Xiangshui, and the park is the "engine for rapid economic development", according to the local government.

Jiangsu Tianjiayi Chemical Co, which has 250 employees, is one of more than 55 companies, many specializing in the manufacture of basic and fine chemicals (complex, single pure substances) at the park.

The company was founded in April 2007 and mainly produces phenylenediamine products, which require nitrate chemical reactions involving dangerous compounds such as benzene.

After the explosion, authorities responsible for production safety nationwide were told to conduct careful inspections of processing plants involved in such reactions.

In February last year, the former General Administration of State Security Supervision found 13 safety hazards at the factory. They included no emergency shutoff valves and leakage prevention measures being in place for benzene and methanol tanks; staff members not being clear about the procedure for inflammable gas-related incidents; and flammable gas being marked as inflammable. It is unclear if the company had removed all the hazards listed.

The factory has also been fined at least seven times by local environmental protection authorities for illegally disposing waste water and gas as well as solid waste between July 2016 and July last year, according to qixin.com, a corporate information inquiry website.

In 2017, its former president was sentenced to 18 months in prison with a reprieve for environmental pollution.

In April last year, pollution at the industrial park placed it in the spotlight. All factories were ordered to suspend their operations until they could fix environmental protection flaws.

Like many other companies, Tianjiayi posted its latest environmental impact assessment report on the website of the Xiangshui government for public opinion in early August. It resumed operations in October.

Ding said, "It's commonplace for the factories to suspend production suddenly to rectify different problems. It may happen several times a year." He added that operations at the factory where he works had been suspended since April 10 last year.

"Of course, safety is the most important thing. On the other hand, we won't have enough income if the factories stop operating," he added. Ding only received 800 yuan ($119) a month as a living allowance when production at the factory was halted. He usually earns from 3,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan a month.

Ding Haibo, another villager in Shadang, said the chemical factories have become an inseparable part of the local community.

Gu Wei, who lives in Sigang village, about 4 km from the industrial park, said many people chose to work for the chemical factories because their farmland was acquired for development. The 35-year-old joined those who fled in 2011 when the rumor of an imminent explosion spread. The crowds running from the village caused a severe traffic jam.

Li Chunhua, director-general of the Green Stone Environmental Protection Center, an NGO in Jiangsu, said, "While the local residents constantly complain about air and water pollution as well as voicing their concerns about safety, they depend on the industrial park. They don't seem to have a choice."

According to a survey conducted by the center in 2016, more than 85 percent of local residents said the industrial park had a severe impact on their lives. "The fact is that the villagers can coexist with the park if all the environmental protection and safety measures are in place," Li said.

But Gu said the factories had often made the air in the village unbearable, adding, "Sometimes you feel as if your eyes are burning."

Xiangshui county is in the north of Jiangsu, which is less developed than southern parts of the province. In the 1990s, the chemical engineering industry also supported economic development in the south until local governments started to attach greater importance to environmental protection and decided to close heavily polluting factories.

At the start of this century, many factories in the south began to move to northern areas of Jiangsu. They were offered preferential policies and cheaper labor.

According to the website of the Xiangshui government, the industrial park has expanded from 4 square kilometers to 10 sq km.

Gu said, "When construction of the park started, local officials asked the villagers to understand that the factories would help them to get out of poverty, so they would have to make some compromises, such as enduring the pollution."

In June 2017, the Xiangshui county government held a meeting to discuss how to relocate those villagers still living too close to the industrial park, which had failed to meet health and safety standards. The relocation was ordered by an environmental protection supervision group dispatched by the central government.

On Monday, the pungent smell of chemicals lingered in the air in Caogang village, about 500 meters from the industrial park.

'Ticking Bombs'

A 63-year-old villager, who gave his name only as Zhang, said he is jealous of his neighbors who have been relocated because their houses lie within a radius of 500 meters from the factories, which is considered the minimum safe distance between the park and residents.

Zhang said: "We feel scared. We also hope to be relocated." He added that the explosion had left cracks in many of the villagers' homes.

Most of the villagers interviewed by China Daily said they were willing to be relocated.

Gu, from Sigang village, worked for Lianhe Tech, another chemical factory at the park, for two months.

He decided to quit after an explosion at the factory killed eight people on Nov 27, 2007. Two of the factory's employees were among the casualties of last week's explosion, while two other explosions occurred at factories owned by Lianhe Tech — a listed company — in other parts of the country in 2011 and 2016.

Gu said: "The chemical factories are ticking bombs. Although so many people lost their lives in last week's explosion, we fear it won't be long until the factories resume operations."

Schools that were closed because of the explosion reopened on Monday.

Wu Yuegui, who lives in Liugang village, about 3 km from the Tianjiayi factory, said he sent his 13-year-old grandson back to school. "If we don't, my grandson will lag behind in his studies," the 63-year-old said, adding that he would like to move to the Xiangshui county seat but he cannot afford an apartment there.

Lou Qinjian, the Jiangsu Party chief, said the province should learn from this "bloody lesson" and "retrospection from the soul."

Jiangsu launched safety inspections on chemical production, transportation and storage facilities after the explosion.

Operations will be suspended once a safety hazard is found. If a company fails to act to end such hazards within a specified time, it will be shut down. Those responsible for rectification work will be held accountable for lives, according to the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China Jiangsu Provincial Committee, the province's top leadership.

Ding Yongshu, the Shadang villager, said that without the factories local people would have to find work elsewhere, which would cost more.

"The industrial park is clearly a major driving force of the county's economic development. Both its destiny and my own are uncertain after what happened," he added.

(Source: China Daily)