Villagers reassess lives after fatal explosion

Jiangsu industrial park casts daunting shadow

Ding Yongshu still vividly remembers the night villagers fled their homes eight years ago after a rumor spread that there would be an explosion because chlorine had leaked at a chemical factory in a nearby industrial park in Xiangshui county, Jiangsu province.

Like many others living near the park, the 58-year-old and five other family members from Shadang village fled in the early hours of Feb 10, 2011. "We took nothing. We just ran for our lives," Ding said.

Unlike 2011, a deadly explosion last week at the Jiangsu Tianjiayi Chemical Co at the same industrial park left villagers with no time to flee or even realize what had happened.

Since the disaster on March 21, which left 78 people dead and scores seriously injured, many villagers have started to reassess their relationship with the park, while government officials nationwide vowed to prevent a similar incident from happening.

Although the cause of the explosion has yet to be disclosed by the investigation team, it was partly due to the poor implementation of the "responsibility system" for production safety, as well as bureaucracy and "formalism in supervision", according to a statement released after a meeting of senior officials from Jiangsu on Saturday.

The explosion shattered all the windows in Ding's house in Shadang, about 2 kilometers from the Xiangshui Ecological Chemical Industrial Park.

"I've never heard such a loud explosion," Ding said on Saturday while removing window frames before replacements arrived.

He has worked at several chemical factories since 2005, three years after the industrial park was built in the county.