Following Tuesday's deadly chlorine leak in east China's Jiangsu Province, the Beijing-based China Youth Daily reported on Friday that hazardous chemical accidents have risen noticeably in recent years. Experts blamed inadequate regulations that allow profit-driven firms to neglect safety measures.

"The number of companies dealing with hazardous chemicals is increasing because doing such business is extremely profitable," Wei Lijun, an expert on their management at the China Academy of Safety Sciences and Technology, told China Daily.

China Youth Daily said that in 2000, 785 were killed in 514 such accidents. This increased to 960 and 621 respectively in 2003. Last April alone, 13 serious chemical leaks and explosions took place in northeast China's Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces and Beijing. A total of 23 people died, with more than 300 hurt or poisoned and up to 150,000 people evacuated.

The most recent accident, in which 28 people were killed after an overloaded tanker carrying 35 tons of liquefied chlorine blew out a tire and hit a truck on the Huaian section of the Beijing-Shanghai expressway, has caused a wave of concern over the management of hazardous chemicals.

Wei said there are about 20,000 manufacturers of hazardous chemicals in China and up to several hundred thousand additional companies in related businesses.

In his opinion, the law, regulatory system and technical standards for the production and management of hazardous chemicals are currently insufficient and should be improved.

Emergency response systems, research, training of government and industry workers, and monitoring of major sources of hazardous chemicals should be strengthened, he said.

At the moment, some chemical management companies have outdated equipment and do not maintain it, said Wei, who added that workers are not well trained.

Wei also said most cities and counties do not have dedicated bodies dealing with hazardous chemicals, and weak research fails to offer enough support to their safe production and management.

Chen Xu, from the State Administration of Work Safety's hazardous chemicals department, told China Youth Daily that frequent accidents are linked to uneven development of the chemical industry among different regions.

He said that some use vehicles that are worth only 100,000 yuan (US$12,000) to transport hazardous chemicals, while others maintain expensive ones costing as much as 1 million yuan (US$120,000).

Chen was quoted as saying that government bodies need to strengthen coordination in order to ensure safe production and that rules from various government bodies sometimes disagree or are too unspecific. For example, stipulations that the uses of hazardous chemicals must be licensed do not make clear which department should issue them.

(China Daily April 4, 2005)