At least 19 people were killed and 12 injured Thursday evening in a chemical plant blast in Sichuan, southwest China, said the Xinhua news agency on Friday.

According to Xinhua, the blast occurred around 18.30 pm local time (1000 GMT) at Yibin Hengda Technology Co., a chemical plant in an industrial park in southwestern Jiang'an County, the city of Yibin.

The Jiang'an county government said the fire from the blast was put out on Friday morning and the injured were in stable condition, said Xinhua.</s>It's not yet clear what caused the explosion at Yibin Hengda Technology in an industrial park several hours southeast of Chengdu, the capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan, according to authorities in Jiang'an county.

Footage from China's state television channel CCTV shows a huge fire and plumes of smoke rising from the facility.

Local government say the injured are in a stable condition and an investigation into the incident has begun.

China has kicked off measures to improve industrial safety, ramping up checks over the last year, following some high-profile incidents at coal mines and chemical plants.</s>BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A major explosion at a chemical plant in southwestern China has killed 19 people and injured 12, authorities said on Friday, the latest deadly industrial incident in the world’s largest producer of chemicals.

It comes amid a drive to strengthen industrial safety, with China ramping up checks over the last year, in the wake of some high-profile incidents at coal mines and chemical plants.

The cause of Thursday evening’s blast at Yibin Hengda Technology in an industrial park several hours southeast of Chengdu, the capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan, is not yet known, the local government in Jiang’an county said.

“I heard seven explosions in ten minutes,” an eyewitness told domestic news agency Beijing News. “It took a couple dozen firefighter trucks to put out the fire.”

The injured are in stable condition and an investigation has begun, state news agency Xinhua said.

The company, which makes chemicals for the food and pharmaceutical industries, did not immediately answer telephone calls from Reuters to seek information.

Photographs on Chinese social media showed a huge fire and plumes of smoke rising from the facility. The fire, which broke out early on Thursday evening, was put out by 11:30 p.m. (1530 GMT), the government said in its statement.

“I heard a big explosion, it was really loud and I felt the ground shaking,” Liu Ping, a manager from the industrial park told China Newsweek, who was in his office at the time of the eruption.

“My first response was that something was wrong and I went the window and saw thick smoke rising from the east.”

A trio of three-storey buildings were reduced to their steel frames by the explosion, the Sichuan Daily newspaper said, citing eyewitness accounts. Footage on its website on Friday afternoon showed the skeleton of the burnt-out buildings.

Windows of nearby buildings were shattered by the explosion at the factory, which is surrounded by a sand and gravel plant, it added.

The plant has three production lines, making 300 tonnes per year (tpy) of benzoic acid, which is used in food preservatives, and 2,000 tpy of 5-nitroisophthalic acid, for medicines and dyes, the regional environmental protection bureau says.

China’s breakneck pace of economic growth during the last decade has resulted in a spate of industrial accidents.

In 2015, an explosion in a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin killed 165 people. Last year, a blast at a petrochemical plant in eastern Shandong province killed eight people and injured nine.</s>The blast occurred at 6:30 pm Thursday night at an industrial park in Sichuan province’s Yibin city, according to a statement on the website of the local work safety administration.

The injured had been taken to hospital and were in stable condition, county officials said, adding that the resulting fire had been put out.

Photos on a local news site showed what appeared to be the burned out shell of a building surrounded by rubble.

The company that owns the building where the fire occurred is a chemical manufacturer named Hengda, according to the official Xinhua news service.

China has been rocked by several industrial accidents in recent years.

A septic tank explosion last November destroyed a wide swathe of a light industrial area in Ningbo, just south of Shanghai.

In 2015, giant chemical blasts in a container storage facility killed at least 165 people in the northern port city of Tianjin.

The explosions caused more than $1 billion in damage and sparked widespread anger at a perceived lack of transparency over the accident’s causes and its environmental impact.

A government inquiry eventually recommended 123 people be punished. Tianjin’s mayor at the time of the accident was sentenced to 12 years in prison for graft in September.</s>An explosion at a chemical plant in China's southwestern province of Sichuan has killed 19 people and injured 12, the local government said Friday.

It is not yet clear what caused Thursday evening's blast at Yibin Hengda Technology in an industrial park several hours from the provincial capital of Chengdu, authorities in Jiang'an county said in a short statement.

Photos on Chinese social media showed a huge fire and plumes of smoke rising from the facility.

China has kicked off measures to improve industrial safety, ramping up checks over the last year, following some high-profile incidents at coal mines and chemical plants.

In 2015, an explosion in a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin killed 165 people. Last year, a blast at a petrochemical plant in eastern Shandong province killed eight people and injured nine.</s>An explosion at a chemical plant in China has killed 19 people and injured 12, officials say.

It's not yet clear what caused the blast on Thursday night at an industrial park in Chengdu, the capital of southwestern province Sichuan, authorities in Jiang'an county said.

The blast is the latest deadly industrial incident in China, which is the largest producer of chemicals.

State news agency Xinhua says the injured are in a stable condition and an investigation into the blast at Yibin Hengda Technology is underway.

The company did not immediately answer telephone calls from Reuters to seek information.

Photographs on Chinese social media show a huge fire and plumes of smoke rising from the facility.

The fire was extinguished by 11.30pm (local time) on Thursday, the government said in a statement.

In 2015, an explosion in a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin killed 165 people.

Last year a blast at a petrochemical plant in eastern Shandong province killed eight people and injured nine.</s>BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A major explosion at a chemical plant in southwestern China has killed 19 people and injured 12, authorities said on Friday, the latest deadly industrial incident in the world’s largest producer of chemicals.

It comes amid a drive to strengthen industrial safety, with China ramping up checks over the last year, in the wake of some high-profile incidents at coal mines and chemical plants.

The cause of Thursday evening’s blast at Yibin Hengda Technology in an industrial park several hours southeast of Chengdu, the capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan, is not yet known, the local government in Jiang’an county said.

“I heard seven explosions in ten minutes,” an eyewitness told domestic news agency Beijing News. “It took a couple dozen firefighter trucks to put out the fire.”

The injured are in stable condition and an investigation has begun, state news agency Xinhua said.

The company, which makes chemicals for the food and pharmaceutical industries, did not immediately answer telephone calls from Reuters to seek information.

Photographs on Chinese social media showed a huge fire and plumes of smoke rising from the facility. The fire, which broke out early on Thursday evening, was put out by 11:30 p.m. (1530 GMT), the government said in its statement.

“I heard a big explosion, it was really loud and I felt the ground shaking,” Liu Ping, a manager from the industrial park told China Newsweek, who was in his office at the time of the eruption.

“My first response was that something was wrong and I went the window and saw thick smoke rising from the east.”

A trio of three-storey buildings were reduced to their steel frames by the explosion, the Sichuan Daily newspaper said, citing eyewitness accounts. Footage on its website on Friday afternoon showed the skeleton of the burnt-out buildings.

Windows of nearby buildings were shattered by the explosion at the factory, which is surrounded by a sand and gravel plant, it added.

The plant has three production lines, making 300 tonnes per year (tpy) of benzoic acid, which is used in food preservatives, and 2,000 tpy of 5-nitroisophthalic acid, for medicines and dyes, the regional environmental protection bureau says.

China’s breakneck pace of economic growth during the last decade has resulted in a spate of industrial accidents.

In 2015, an explosion in a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin killed 165 people. Last year, a blast at a petrochemical plant in eastern Shandong province killed eight people and injured nine.</s>SHANGHAI: An explosion at a chemical plant in China's southwestern province of Sichuan has killed 19 people and injured 12, the local government said on Friday (Jul 13), the latest deadly industrial incident in the world's largest producer of chemicals.

It is not yet clear what caused Thursday evening's blast at Yibin Hengda Technology in an industrial park several hours southeast of Chengdu, the capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan, authorities in Jiang'an county said.

The injured are in stable condition and an investigation has begun, state news agency Xinhua said.



The company did not immediately answer telephone calls from Reuters to seek information.



Photos on Chinese social media showed a huge fire and plumes of smoke rising from the facility.

The fire, which broke out early on Thursday evening, was put out by 11.30 pm, the government said in its statement.



China has kicked off measures to improve industrial safety, ramping up checks over the last year, following some high-profile incidents at coal mines and chemical plants.

In 2015, an explosion in a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin killed 165 people. Last year a blast at a petrochemical plant in eastern Shandong province killed eight people and injured nine.</s>Nineteen people have been killed in an explosion at a chemical plant in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, local authorities said.

The explosion happened at 6.30pm on Thursday in an industrial zone in Jiangan county, according to a statement issued by the Sichuan Industry Safety Supervision Administration.

Twelve people were injured in the accident, the cause of which is under investigation, the statement said.

None of those injured were in a critical condition, according to the local government.

Footage from state television channel CCTV showed heavy smoke rising from the factory, which was owned by the Hengda Science and Technology Company.

Fire crews sent to the scene put out the fire later on Thursday and local firefighters told that the blast had been caused by exploding methanol but did not provide further details.

The reported that a mainland business registration database showed that Hengda had been established three years ago and was listed as a chemical product manufacturer and distributor.

Last year the provincial Environmental Protection Department approved its application to lease more land in the industrial zone to build more facilities for producing chemical intermediates, the newspaper reports.</s>SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) - An explosion at a chemical plant in China has killed 19 people and injured 12, authorities said on Friday, the latest deadly industrial incident in the world’s largest producer of chemicals.

It comes amid a drive to strengthen industrial safety, with China ramping up checks over the last year, in the wake of some high-profile incidents at coal mines and chemical plants.

The cause of Thursday evening’s blast at Yibin Hengda Technology in an industrial park several hours southeast of Chengdu, the capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan, is not yet known, the local government in Jiang’an county said.

The injured are in stable condition and an investigation has begun, state news agency Xinhua said.

The company, which makes chemicals for the food and pharmaceutical industries, did not immediately answer telephone calls from Reuters to seek information.

Photographs on Chinese social media showed a huge fire and plumes of smoke rising from the facility. The fire, which broke out early on Thursday evening, was put out by 11:30 p.m., the government said in its statement.

A trio of three-storey buildings were reduced to their steel frames by the explosion, the Sichuan Daily newspaper said, citing eyewitness accounts.

Windows of nearby buildings were shattered by the explosion at the factory, which is surrounded by a sand and gravel plant, it added.

The plant has three production lines, making 300 tonnes per year (tpy) of benzoic acid, which is used in food preservatives, and 2,000 tpy of 5-nitroisophthalic acid, for medicines and dyes, the regional environmental protection bureau says.

China’s breakneck pace of economic growth during the last decade has resulted in a spate of industrial accidents.

In 2015, an explosion in a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin killed 165 people. Last year a blast at a petrochemical plant in eastern Shandong province killed eight people and injured nine.
An explosion at a chemical plant in Sichuan, China, kills 19 people and injures 12 others.