China's cabinet on Friday urged the country's chemical plants to tighten work safety control after a fatal blast in the south.

Officials at all levels must "learn deep lessons" from the accident and map out development plans for local chemical industry with specific safety and environmental standards, said an urgent circular issued by the Office of the Work Safety Commission under the State Council.

Disqualified technicians or institutions must be banned from providing designs for technical upgrading at chemical factories, said the circular.

Chemical plants were told to step up safety supervision at dangerous work sites such as storage areas.

Those enterprises failing to find out major hidden safety hazards in time would be punished, starting from next year, it said.

An explosion at a chemical plant killed 20 and injured 60 in Yizhou City of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on August 26.

About 11,500 residents in the neighborhood were evacuated. The cause of the explosion hasn't been determined.

The State Administration of Work Safety said on Friday it would conduct a full-scale safety overhaul on all chemical plants in three months beginning from September 10.

Wang Jun, head of the administration, said China still faced a grim situation in terms of work safety though progress had been made.

The country reported 10 major accidents in a row from August 1 to September 4, according to Wang.

"There remain loopholes in our work," he said. "The foundation of work safety is not solid and hidden risks haven't been eradicated."

In the first eight months, deaths in accidents decreased 14 percent from a year ago in China, while coal mine deaths dropped 24.1 percent, the administration figures show.

(Xinhua News Agency September 6, 2008)