Death toll climbs to 64 in one of China's worst industrial blasts in recent years

Beijing, Mar 23 The death toll climbed to 64 in one of the worst industrial accidents of China in recent times which knocked down buildings, tossed children into air and caused a tremor equivalent to a magnitude-3.0 earthquake, officials said Saturday

The authorities said that 24 others were missing.

The blast occurred after a fire in the fertilizer factory in Jiangsu province on Thursday, according to the government of Xiangshui county.

Thirty-four people were in a basic condition and 73 seriously injured, state-run China Daily reported.

The death toll is expected to ascend as several people have been critically harmed.

More than 640 people were injured in the episode.

In excess of 3,000 workers and around 1,000 residents have been migrated to safe places. The Ministry of Emergency Management said that 88 people were rescued from the scene.

Such is the size of the devastation that the entire industrial park in the Yancheng took after a zone struck by a massive earthquake with practically all buildings demolished in one go.

It is the worst industrial accident since the massive explosion rocked the port area of Tianjin in 2015 in which 173 people were killed.

The China earthquake centre reported an earthquake of 3.0 magnitude during the time of the blast.

An aerial video posted by China Daily which provided the first detailed view of the area showed shocking images of the blast which has destroyed the whole neighbourhood, causing a broad harm displaying the damaging side of China's unbridled industrial development.

Jiangsu Tianjiayi Chemical plant, where the impact occurred, was leveled and 16 neighboring production lines were left with fluctuating degrees of harm. The effect crushed windows and evacuated tops of certain structures and diminished others to rubble.

Officials claimed that the rivers outside the chemical industrial park were not polluted.

Executives of the chemical plant have been taken into police custody.

Schools and kindergartens had been shut while the specialists observed air and water quality, an official said.

Since Friday, harmed people started streaming into the emergency ward at Xiangshui People's Hospital one of the biggest in Xiangshui county, around 300 km north of Shanghai, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post wrote about Saturday.

Survivors of the devastating chemical plant impact in eastern China told media that they had seen goliath fireballs detonating and kids being shot into air by the force of the blast.

As rescuers continued to search for survivors following the blast, those caught up in the "earth-shattering" said that people living 10 km far from the blast site had been left choking on toxic clouds.

Wang Xinfang said shards of glass from the windows had been "falling like downpour" in a town six kms from the plant. She had been out shopping at the season of the blast and immediately run out of the store, the Post report said.

She later discovered one member from her family pounded in the rubble of their home close to the site while her home, in the neighbouring town of Haianju, endured broad harm.

Li Hongmei, a hotel owner from Chenjiagang, said she had seen a three-year-old boy being thrown into air by the power of the shockwave that left him visibly terrified.

Gao Congbiao from Shadang town, 6 km far from the plant, had been working on his land when he saw a "big fireball detonating into wild flares" and said the "noteworthy" impact had left his home and farmland seriously damaged.

Gao, a member from a nearby Christian congregation, said a considerable lot of the windows at his church had been blown out, forcing the group to cancel their regular Friday prayer meeting.

He said the blazes rose to tallness of around four stories and after that set off a chain of blasts, by setting off a close-by benzol storage tank.

"After the second explosion, the road was full of people running for their lives," the Post cited him as saying.

Some survivors of the blast told how they had been left trapped in the wreckage and had to endure an agonising wait to be rescued.

Wang Qiang was in a meeting 300 meters from the plant when the impact rocked the structure and left him covered under a heap of rubble in what used to be the conference room.

While President Xi Jinping has urged all-out rescue efforts, the central cabinet has ordered an inquiry.

Xi, who is in Europe on an official visit, said that full scale efforts must be made to look through those caught, and the injured must be timely treated and relief work must be well carried out to maintain social stability.

Xi ordered that the reason for the accident must be identified as right on time as would be prudent and that legitimate data ought to be convenient released.

The fire fighter brigade of Jiangsu has mobilised 176 fire trucks with 928 work force to join the salvage mission, the Ministry of Emergency Management said.