11 workers killed in building blast

By Cao Li (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-12 07:43

Rescue workers search for missing people after an explosion pulled down a building accommodating railway construction workers in Danyang, Jiangsu province, yesterday. Gao Erqiang

DANYANG, Jiangsu: Eleven workers building an express railway between Shanghai and Nanjing were killed in an explosion, allegedly caused by aluminium powder, Wednesday morning.

At 1:45 am, the middle part of a U-shaped dormitory building, home to hundreds of workers, about 2 km away from the construction site in Huiji village, Lucheng town of Danyang, was blown up, killing 11 and injuring 20.

"There was a huge bang, jolting us awake," said a 37-year-old worker surnamed Feng from Henan province who lives in the left wing of the building.

"There was a small fire and we rushed into the debris to pull out people," he told China Daily Wednesday.

Police and firemen arrived about 40 minutes later, he said.

A local villager surnamed Wang said the whole village heard the explosion. "The glass windows of neighboring houses were shattered to pieces and a window pane of another house about 10 to 20 m away dropped as well," he said.

Zhang Liugou, director of the local public security bureau, said that the explosion tore down a part of the building, home to 48 workers, mostly from Guizhou province.

Seventeen workers were asked to step out of the building to haul iron bars to the construction site minutes before the explosion. Eleven people, including a contractor, died on the site or soon after being rushed to local hospitals.

Ye Wenzao, another worker from Taizhou, said most of the 48 housed in the site joined work only about 20 days ago. "They were carpenters," he said.

Xiao Quan, the provincial government's spokesman, said that the 20 injured were in a stable condition.

"Aluminium powder, left in the building, caused the explosion," Xiao said. "The building used to be an aluminium producing factory." Xiao said that the explosion might be caused by humidity or the substance catching fire. "We are still investigating the cause," he said.

The building housed a garment factory after the aluminium plant moved. It was turned into apartment for workers after the garment factory moved from it.

It was not clarified if traces of powdered aluminium remained in any other part of the building.

The excavation work was completed by 4 pm. Feng and his fellow workers did not move out. "We have not been asked to leave yet," he said. "But I am so afraid to have to sleep here now."