{"id":23530,"date":"2018-11-28T05:24:29","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T05:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23530"},"modified":"2018-11-28T05:24:29","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T05:24:29","slug":"explosion-at-chemical-factory-in-china-kills-22-injures-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23530","title":{"rendered":"Explosion at chemical factory in China kills 22, injures 22"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"100\">\n<p class=\"speakable\"><span>An explosion near a chemical plant in China&#8217;s northern Hebei province early on Wednesday killed 22 people and injured at least 22 others.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">A video of the blast scene in Zhangjiakou city shared by state media showed billowing black smoke and flames, while photographs showed rows of burned-out cars and trucks lining the streets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The fire engulfed 50 vehicles, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing <span>government\u00a0<\/span>sources.<\/p>\n<p>State media said all fires at the blast site had been extinguished.<\/p>\n<p>An official news release said the blast occurred just after midnight at a loading dock next to the plant\u00a0operated by the Hebei Shenghua Chemical Industry Co. Ltd.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Zhangjiakou, a city about 156km northwest of Beijing, is set to host the 2022 Winter Olympics alongside the capital Beijing.<\/p>\n<p>The explosion occurred at the entrance of the factory when a vehicle transporting dangerous chemicals blew up, according to The Paper, a news outlet that cited a staffer at the Zhangjiakou City Safety Production Supervision Administration.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;On-site search and rescue work and investigation of the cause of the accident are still under way,&#8221; the propaganda department said.<\/p>\n<p>Three decades of swift economic growth in China have been marred by incidents ranging from deadly mining disasters to factory fires, but public anger over safety standards has grown.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span>China has vowed to improve industrial standards but environmentalists say they fear oversight weaknesses persist, including an opaque production process for hazardous chemicals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In August 2015, 165 people were killed after a chemical warehouse explosion in the port city of Tianjin. A government report found the disaster was caused by hazardous materials that had been improperly or illegally stored. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An explosion near a chemical plant in China&#8217;s northern Hebei province early on Wednesday killed 22 people and injured at least 22 others. A video of the blast scene in Zhangjiakou city shared by state media showed billowing black smoke and flames, while photographs showed rows of burned-out cars and trucks lining the streets. The&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":23531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}