City officials admonished after deadly production accidents in Shandong, Inner Mongolia

BEIJING - The workplace safety commission of State Council on Monday summoned the leading city officials of Jinan and Ulanqab, admonishing them to take effective measures to ensure the safe production of hazardous chemicals, according to sources with the Ministry of Emergency Management.

The two cities both reported deadly production accidents in April, with 10 people killed in the accident of Qilu Tianhe Pharmaceutical in Jinan, Shandong Province, and another four dead and 35 injured in an accident at the Dongxing Chemical Company of Ulanqab in Inner Mongolia.

The accidents exposed the two cities' main officials lacking safe production awareness, and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council require local governments to learn lessons from the deadly blast at Xiangshui Chemical Industrial Park in Jiangsu, the ministry noted.

The blast at Xiangshui Chemical Industrial Park on March 21 killed 78 people and injured hundreds more.

The ministry said that the commission had ordered the leaders of the two cities as well as officials in charge of local emergency management to combine the philosophy of safe development into their decision-making and specific work.

It urged the officials of the two cities to make proper arrangements on safe production, implement the responsibility for supervision, enhance capacity building of supervision over safety in the production of hazardous chemicals, and ward off severe accidents at workplaces.