March22,2019

On March 21, an explosion toppled several buildings in the industrial park in Xiangshui County, Yancheng, Jiangsu Province of China and caused a huge fire and thick plumes of black smoke into the air that raged through the night. The windows of homes a few kilometers away were shattered. More than 600 people have received medical treatment following the catastrophe that left 62 people dead, according to the city government, and some 4,000 people have been evacuated from the blast site.

Hundreds of rescuers have been dispatched to the scene and scrambled to pull survivors from the wreckage of the plant owned by Tianjiayi Chemical. The firm has 195 employees, founded in 2007 to produce raw chemical materials inclusive of highly flammable compound anisole, and has a history of violating environmental regulations for violating rules on solid and water waste management in 2015 and 2017.

In the aftermath of the explosion, Jiangsu province's ecology and environment department reported on March 22 that a few rivers near the blast site were contaminated with chemicals, including chloroform and dichloromethane.

According to the official Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for an "all-out effort" to aid those injured and to identify the cause of the accident "as early as possible" to prevent any more industrial disasters.