Shanghai authorities announced on Saturday an investigation to determine the cause of the fire at a chemical plant that left one dead and one injured, the first major industrial accident since the city lifted the containment in early June.
The fire that broke out at dawn on Saturday at Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Co., in the outlying district of Jinshan, southwest of Shanghai, was brought under control within hours.
Shanghai authorities announced that a “burning of protection is underway” and that “security risks” were “controllable”, on social networks. They added that their emergency management office had launched an investigation into the cause of the crash.
Thick clouds of black smoke
The company said for its part on Saturday afternoon that it was cooperating with the investigation. According to her, the closure of the facilities concerned “will not have a significant impact on the market”. She said the deceased was a driver of a third-party transport vehicle and added that one of her employees had been slightly injured.
A video filmed by a drone shows thick clouds of black smoke above the vast industrial area with three separate sources of fire, in separate buildings. Residents of this petrochemical plant heard an explosion, followed by a fire.
The refinery is located near the seafront, not far from a natural park. “Half the sky was filled with red fire and thick black smoke, there was dust and cotton-like things floating in the air,” a resident told the newspaper. Upstream News from Chongqing.
500 firefighters on site
“You could hear the sound of flames, a huge roar like the sound of an airplane in flight,” he added.
The Shanghai Fire Department announced on Weibo, the local equivalent of Twitter, that it had dispatched more than 500 people to the scene immediately, while the Ministry of Emergency Management dispatched experts, CCTV reported.
The fire broke out as Shanghai, the economic capital of China, cautiously resumes its activity after being completely confined for two months in response to an epidemic outbreak of Covid-19, which led to the closure of factories and supply chain disruptions.