Thirteen others have been discharged and 37 are about to leave the hospital, according to a conference held by the emergency-meeting headquarters Saturday morning.

"The badly injured will be able to leave the hospital in three weeks and there will be no complications or negative effect on their ability to work in the future," said Xu Xinrong, director of guarding room for serious patients in People's Hospital of Jiangsu Province, at the conference.

The accident occurred at 6:50 PM Tuesday, when a tank truck carrying 35 tons of chlorine blew out a tire and rammed into a cargo truck on the Huai'an section of the Beijing-Shanghai expressway. The tragedy killed 28 people and lead to the hospitalization of 350 others.

Rescuers dug a pond at roadside shortly after the accident to counteract the chlorine with caustic soda. The area has been under 24-hour surveillance ever since. The bulk of clean-up ended Friday morning.

According to an official in charge of plant protection, the leak didn't cause crucial damage to the soil nearby. He denied a rumor that plants would not be able to grow on the affected ground for years.

The official admitted that leakage damaged more than 1,300 hectares of crops owned by 11 villages nearby.

(Xinhua News Agency April 3, 2005)