Blood donors rush to save lives of victims

Willing members of public brave long lines; food for injured taken to hospitals

As officials try to unravel the cause of the deadly blast at a chemical industry park in Jiangsu province, help from the public has been pouring in.

There were so many people that came to donate blood in Xiangshui county that organizers ran out of application forms on Friday, and donors continued to come through the weekend.

Liu Cheng, a doctor responsible for registration at the blood donation station, said that they had to ask their headquarters to dispatch another specially equipped bus for collection on Friday as there were so many people.

As of 4 pm on Sunday, local residents had donated about 350,000 milliliters of blood for those severely injured since the station was set up late Thursday afternoon, according to the station.

An average adult male weighing 70 kilograms has a blood volume of about 5,000 milliliters.

Meng Xianghua, a member of the local labor union assisting with the donations, said that on average, people had to wait at least five hours on Friday to donate blood.

He said one of his neighbors came at 8 am on Friday and was only able to donate blood at 1:30 pm. The union has been offering free food and water to donors, Meng said.

Zhou Junlu, a Xiangshui native who works in Shanghai, rushed home to see if he could help do anything after hearing news of the explosion. His journey took about six hours.

"There were too many people yesterday, so I decided to come today. I waited about two hours to donate blood," the 35-year-old said on Sunday morning.

Zhang Yinlong, 35, whose home is about 20 kilometers from the donation station, came four times because of long lines.

"I came at 5 pm yesterday, but the line was extremely long. I went back home and came back again at about 8 pm, but had to give up after waiting two hours," he said on Friday afternoon.

Zhang, a welder, spent another three hours waiting on Friday morning, but had to give up again at noon to pick up his son from primary school. So, he joined the line again after lunch.

On Saturday, volunteers and officers with the local Red Cross society brought 40 tents, 50 folding beds and 60 bags containing daily necessities like toothbrushes and soap to the area near the explosion site.

Many kindhearted people also came to Xiangshui People's Hospital to offer free food and medicine to the injured who were hospitalized there.

Chen Yueru, a member of the local volunteer association, said 2,177 food boxes were received for lunch. More than 10,000 bottles of water, 24 boxes of ham sausages, 14 boxes of instant noodles and 500 loaves of bread were also delivered to the hospital on Friday. Some people traveled 60 kilometers to offer food.

About 200 members from the association came to the hospital on Friday to assist patients, Chen said.