Explosions from leaking oil pipeline kill 35
Print Edition
Leaked oil from a ruptured pipeline in an eastern Chinese port city exploded yesterday, killing at least 35 people, injuring 166 and contaminating the nearby sea.
The leaked oil triggered two huge blasts, one of them tearing up concrete along a city road in Qingdao.
The force of the blast also turned cars over and sent thick black smoke billowing over the city, darkening much of the city, pictures showed.
One pedestrian had a leg blown off and another man’s head was crushed under a piece of concrete debris.
Cracks as long as 1.5 kilometers were created in the streets by the impact of the blasts.
“I have only seen this in a disaster film,” said a rescuer surnamed Xue, who drove past the streets where the blast happened.
Xue said he was astonished by the sight of a bus sandwiched between huge cracks in the street with passengers trapped inside.
“Some cars along the street are turned over, some are covered with concrete slabs, and some others have lost their window glass,” he said.
The blasts happened around 10:30am at an intersection in Huangdao District as workers were repairing a petroleum pipeline, according to the Qingdao government’s publicity office. The pipeline had begun leaking oil about 3am at another road crossing, the office said.
Oil leaked from the pipeline into the utilities pipe network, which caused the explosion, according to an initial investigation by the rescue headquarters at the scene.
A total of 35 people were killed, the government said, while 166 were injured. Among those, 65 were seriously hurt and eight people were deemed to be in danger of dying, the city government said.
Wang Aihua, a doctor at Huangdao District People’s Hospital, said they had received more than 20 patients injured in the accident and are expecting more.
Some residents have been evacuated from the area for fear that a second explosion might occur, added Wang.
A staff member from Huangdao District Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine told a Xinhua reporter by phone last night that the hospital had received more than 50 patients since the blast, with some of them under emergency treatment.
The male staff member, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that there had been fatalities, but he refused to reveal a number.
Most of the injuries were fractures due to the force of the blast, he said.
More then 800 doctors and nurses from the hospital have participated in the rescue efforts, he added.
The pipeline, run by Sinopec, leaked for about 15 minutes onto a street and into the sea before it was shut off. Hours later, as workers cleaned up the spill, the oil caught fire and exploded in two locations, the city government said.
Authorities ruled out the possibility of terrorism, but the incident remained under investigation, the local government said.
The 176-kilometer pipeline links oil depots in Qingdao’s Huangdao District to Weifang City, home to a few petrochemical plants.
Huangdao District is connected with the city proper by the Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay Bridge.
The pipeline, with a total investment of 1.3 billion yuan (US$211.8 million), was put into operation in August. It has an annual transportation capacity of 15 million tons.
Sinopec issued a statement online, offering condolences to victims. “We will investigate the incident with responsibility and give timely reports,” it said.
The Qingdao Environmental Protection Bureau said barriers had been set up to contain the oil spill as it spread into the sea, but that a mixture of gas and oil from a storm sewer exploded and caught fire over the sea.
More than 3,000 square meters of sea surface was contaminated, the city government said.
Environmental monitoring showed that the concentration of toxic materials in the air was below the national standard. The local government has told citizens to remain calm.
The Qingdao government has ordered scrutiny of the safety of the city’s pipeline network after the accident.
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