More gas leaks: over 100 people in hospital

Hong Kong (AsiaNews/SCMP) – Another gas leak on Jan. 15 led to the poisoning of 134 persons in villages of the Heilongjiang province in northern China.  

At night the village of Gaotou was covered with smoke coming from 7 abandoned tanks in a nearby chemical plant. Six persons, who said they had difficulty breathing, were taken to the hospital.  

Today conditions are still critical. According to the news agency, Xinhua, 100 people from the province were taken to hospital and 13 are still under close watch, since they still have symptoms of nausea and problems breathing.

There were no cases of death. In a TV announcement authorities urged inhabitants in some villages not to leave home and said that an investigation is underway to find out who was responsible for what happened. According to some people the gas leak was caused by the presence of Japanese chemical weapons in the territory, which in August had caused the death of 1 person and wounded 43. However a Gaotou town official ruled out the possibility. 

The Gaotou accident is the latest in a series of leaks of gas and toxic substances due to poor plant conditions.

Two days before, in the province of Henan, a gas leak from a tank truck caused 24,000 people to be evacuated.  

Last December one of the most disastrous gas leaks ever in China occurred in Chongqing, at a PetroChina (China's largest oil company) plant. The accident resulted in 243 deaths, 10,000 wounded and 60,000 people being evacuated. Police recently arrested some  PetroChina plant workers, held to be directly involved in the disaster. Among them was the plant's director. In addition to poor plant management, ill-prepared technicians and incompetent local authorities were blamed for the disaster.(MR)

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• pollution