JILIN CHEMICAL PLANT EXPLOSION BY FAZIRA AMIRA

The Jilin chemical plant explosion were a series of explosion which occurred on 13 November 2005, in the No.101 Petrochemical Plant in Jilin City, Jilin Province, China, over the period of an hour. The explosions killed six, injured dozens and caused the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The No.101 Jilin Chemical plant was located in Jilin City in Jilin Province, China around 380 kilometers up river from Harbin City. The plant was located next to the Songhua River, which is the main water source for much of northeastern China, including Jilin and Harbin. The Songhua River eventually runs into the Amur RIver which flows through southern Russia.

The Jilin Chemical Plant itself was the first major, large scale chemical industry base to be built in China, producing chemicals such as benzene. nitrobenzene, and aniline which are often used in the production of different plastics.

EXPLOSION

The initial explosion happened on November 13, 2005. Around noon on the day of the blast a blockage occurred in the chemical plant’s processing nitration tower for the the production of benzene. A plant worker attempted to clear the blockage on his own, but was unsuccessful.3 The blockage and the workers inability to clear the blockage eventually lead to an explosion at 1:40 p.m.

The plants initial explosion was so powerful that they shattered windows that were at least 100 to 200 meters way from the chemical plants. Explosions continued throughout the plant for about and hour and eventually lead to a large scale fire at the plants. The fire was eventually put out in the early morning of November 14,6 by around three hundred firefighters.

After the blast and the resulting fire was put out at the chemical plant, Jilin Petrochemicals denied that the Songhua River has been polluted by spilled chemical from the plant. The local Jilin officials also claimed that as a result of the explosions and resulting fire had not released any toxic chemicals into the air, but that the fire had burned all the chemicals and that it had only produced carbon dioxide and water.2

There were initial worries that the explosion may have been caused by a terrorist groups, but it was later discovered that the explosion was not caused by terrorists and instead was operator error.

EVACUATION

After the explosion and resulting fire the residents of Jilin City did evacuate the city, not because they were warned to by the local government, but because they discovered what the actual situation of the chemical explosion was. Soon after the explosion occurred a large amount of yellow and dark smoke filled the sky around the city, the smoke made it extremely difficult for the residents to breathe. By 4 p.m. almost everyone that was able to met at the cities center and began leaving the city. But because the police blocked off city streets for emergency vehicles like cars, taxi,and buses were unable to make there way through the city and greatly reduced the evacuation. Initially more then 30,000 residents of the city evacuated the city along with 12,000 university students, including 5,000 students form the Jilin Petrochemical College. But because residents were unable to use vehicles, large amount of the old and sick were left behind. Eventually 10,000 more residents had to be evacuated by the Chinese Government.

Shortly after the explosion and during the cities evacuation, electricity, water, heat, and all telecommunications were shout off, except for radio broadcasting. In the city all schools and business were closed and by 7pm [that not almost no one had electricity. The communication that was being sent out by the Chinese government suggested that the city was safe and that only non-toxic carbon dioxide had been generated by the incident, despite the fact the sky above the city was still largely covered in thick yellow smoke.