A blast in Xiangshui County that killed 78 people last month reflects concerns over corruption and safety during the country’s headlong rush for development.
An aerial view of the debris of the chemical plant operated by Tianjiayi Chemical Co., after an explosion killed at least 78 people March 21 in Xiangshui county, China. By Gerry Shih Gerry Shih China Correspondent Email Bio Follow March 31 at 2:59 PM XIANGSHUI COUNTY, China — A deadly factory explosion in 2007 didn’t kill Ren Guanying. Nor did the chlorine gas leak that sparked mass panic in 2010.
“We used to always worry whenever we heard a blast, until we got numb to it,” Ma said in her shattered home about half a mile from the chemical plants. “This place was like a time bomb. This time, it finally got my mom.” Three years after a similar blast in Tianjin killed more than 170 people southeast of Beijing, the Xiangshui disaster is a reminder of the domestic challenges facing President Xi Jinping, who has vowed to pursue safe, “high-quality” development but also keep the sagging economy and employment numbers afloat.
Public records show local inspectors found 13 safety violations at Tianjiayi in February 2018. The company was fined at least a half-dozen times over the past five years for improper treatment of hazardous waste. Local officials tried to change their luck 15 years ago by assiduously courting heavy industry, mostly chemical producers. The payoff has been dramatic: Xiangshui county’s gross domestic product rose from $1.5 billion in 2009 to $5.2 billion in 2018, according to the local government, which says three industrial parks account for more than 90 percent of the economy.
Industrial pollution became so rampant that several northern Jiangsu communities gained notoriety in the 2000s as “cancer villages.” In the case of Dongjin, 40 miles from the recent blast site, villagers sued a local chemical company after 100 residents were diagnosed with cancer. In response, the firm in 2006 offered a “subsidy” of $11 to each resident.
In 2017, Zhang was given a suspended prison sentence of 18 months and slapped with a $149,000 fine after being sued for dumping 120 tons of industrial waste.“Why was that he is still the boss?” said Gao Xiaomei, a resident of Wangshang village, the area closest to the blast. “Who is supporting him? Who is giving him the power to gamble with people’s lives and blood?”
Zhong Zhichun, a native of Hubei province who came to work at Lianhetech factory near Tianjiayi, said business owners were cozy with regulators, and employees in the industrial zone were almost always informed days before inspections took place.Last week, near the blast scene, police roughed up and detained reporters as well as Zhang Wenbin, a well-known environmental researcher.
“They’re forcing us to fix our windows and paint our facades so they can show higher-ups how they’ve done reconstruction,” Gao said. “But how do we dare to sleep in our homes with cracks in the walls? They’re putting makeup on a corpse.”
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