Oil pollution fight begin after blaze battle ends
Source: Xinhua |
July 18, 2010, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
Flames that engulfed a port in Dalian, a coastal city in northeast China's Liaoning Province, were virtually extinguished by yesterday morning, 15 hours after a series of explosions at two oil pipelines.
But maritime workers were still cleaning up pollution at sea after the fire was put out. A dark brown belt of crude oil and other pollution was stretching at least 50 square kilometers in seawaters off Dalian's Xingang Harbor.
There were no casualties from the blaze, a city government spokesman told a briefing, and the site of the fire was far from residential areas.
But the city's downtown areas were overshadowed by smog yesterday. At sina.com, China's leading news portal, local residents complained of a stinging odor in Dalian's four downtown districts.
The authorities said hydrocarbon density was high within a radius of 1.2 kilometers of the fire site.
No one lives within 3 kilometers of the site, but about 600 families live within 4 kilometers of it.
Firefighters managed to switch off valves on all oil tanks and had the situation under control yesterday, said Xu Guochen, secretary-general of the city government.
The accident happened after a 300,000-ton Liberian tanker had uploaded oil in the harbor "with inappropriate procedures," Central China Television reported.
The tanker, with 27 sailors, left the harbor safely.
Xu said that more than 2,000 firefighters and 338 fire engines from 14 cities across the province worked through the night to extinguish the blaze.
China's Air Force sent two Y8 aircraft to the area, carrying 17.8 tons of fire extinguishing agent.
Xu said the flames gave off gas containing sulphur and aromatic hydrocarbon that were not fatally toxic.
There was an explosion at an oil pipeline 0.9 meters in diameter at 6pm on Friday and this triggered an adjacent smaller pipeline to explode. The pipelines were links between ships and oil tanks on land.
Both pipelines, owned by China National Petroleum Corp, caught fire. The blaze at the larger pipeline was extinguished around midnight, but at least five subsequent explosions worsened the fire on the smaller pipeline.
A spokesman with the Dalian fire brigade said it proved difficult to switch off the oil pump on the smaller pipeline because of mechanical failures caused by the fire, and oil spills exacerbated the situation.
Firefighters had to switch it off by hand, which took much longer.
But maritime workers were still cleaning up pollution at sea after the fire was put out. A dark brown belt of crude oil and other pollution was stretching at least 50 square kilometers in seawaters off Dalian's Xingang Harbor.
There were no casualties from the blaze, a city government spokesman told a briefing, and the site of the fire was far from residential areas.
But the city's downtown areas were overshadowed by smog yesterday. At sina.com, China's leading news portal, local residents complained of a stinging odor in Dalian's four downtown districts.
The authorities said hydrocarbon density was high within a radius of 1.2 kilometers of the fire site.
No one lives within 3 kilometers of the site, but about 600 families live within 4 kilometers of it.
Firefighters managed to switch off valves on all oil tanks and had the situation under control yesterday, said Xu Guochen, secretary-general of the city government.
The accident happened after a 300,000-ton Liberian tanker had uploaded oil in the harbor "with inappropriate procedures," Central China Television reported.
The tanker, with 27 sailors, left the harbor safely.
Xu said that more than 2,000 firefighters and 338 fire engines from 14 cities across the province worked through the night to extinguish the blaze.
China's Air Force sent two Y8 aircraft to the area, carrying 17.8 tons of fire extinguishing agent.
Xu said the flames gave off gas containing sulphur and aromatic hydrocarbon that were not fatally toxic.
There was an explosion at an oil pipeline 0.9 meters in diameter at 6pm on Friday and this triggered an adjacent smaller pipeline to explode. The pipelines were links between ships and oil tanks on land.
Both pipelines, owned by China National Petroleum Corp, caught fire. The blaze at the larger pipeline was extinguished around midnight, but at least five subsequent explosions worsened the fire on the smaller pipeline.
A spokesman with the Dalian fire brigade said it proved difficult to switch off the oil pump on the smaller pipeline because of mechanical failures caused by the fire, and oil spills exacerbated the situation.
Firefighters had to switch it off by hand, which took much longer.
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