China: Second factory explosion in a month leaves 7 dead

Dandan Li
Bloomberg
Sun, 31 Mar 2019 20:35 UTC

© Handout

The blast happened at the Kunshan Waffer Technology factory in Kunshan, Jiangsu.

A blast at a Taiwan-listed company's factory in China on Sunday killed seven people, the government says, just over a week after an explosion in the same eastern province left scores dead.

The explosion at a metal-processing plant owned by Waffer Technology (Kunshan) Ltd. also injured five people, the government of Kunshan, which is in Jiangsu province and borders Shanghai, said in a post on its Weibo social media account. The blast was caused by a container of scrap metal bursting into flames and setting a workshop ablaze just after 7 a.m., the government said.

Waffer Technology (Kunshan) is a major production base for Taiwan-listed Waffer Technology Corp., according to the latter's website.

© Weibo

A still from an unverified video on social media apparently shows thick smoke engulfing the factory.

The industrial accident comes 10 days after an explosion at chemical plant in Chenjiagang, Jiangsu province. The official Xinhua News Agency updated the death toll for that incident to 78 on March 25. Police took people into custody over the incident in Chenjiagang, Xinhua reported earlier.

China has been seeking to make workplaces safer after industrial accidents that included a massive explosion in 2015 at a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin that killed 173 people. A blast in 2014 at an auto-parts plant in Suzhou, also in Jiangsu, killed 146 people.

Comment: Although the causes may differ, China is no stranger to explosions at factories and other manufacturers, as the South China Morning Post reports:

There have been other deadly blasts in Kunshan, an industrial city near Shanghai. In August 2014, an explosion at an auto parts factory claimed 146 lives and injured 114 others. The local work safety authority said the factory, Zhongrong Metal Production, had ignored several warnings about the potential for an explosion. Following the blast, 14 company executives and local government officials were jailed for between three and seven years, while 35 other officials were disciplined and demoted.

See also:

• Terrorism? Explosions rock residential high-rise in Changchun, China (2019)
• Inferno erupts at oil depot in Tianjin, China (2018)
• Chinese chemical factory blast kills 22, injures 22 (2018)
• Explosion hits chemical plant in Tongling, East China (2017)
• Yet another huge explosion and fire at chemical facility - This time in Jingjiang, eastern China (2016)
• Another massive blast rocks chemical factory in China (2015)