Taking action

President Xi Jinping has ordered all-out efforts to treat the injured and demanded a full investigation into the accident.

Yang Dongliang, Director of the State Administration of Work Safety, was assigned as the head of the investigation team.

Victims have been sent to 15 medical institutions across Jiangsu Province and Shanghai Municipality.

A member of medical staff at Kunshan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine said most of the injured had suffered external burns as well as burns to their respiratory systems.

Health officials said some of the injured have been transferred from Kunshan to the nearby cities of Suzhou, Wuxi and Shanghai.

Doctors and nurses specializing in burns at Shanghai's Ruijin Hospital came to Kunshan to help, which are "crowded with injured patients," according to the hospital.

Authorities in Kunshan have opened a hotline for relatives, who desperate to locate loved ones missing after the blast.

"When we answer the phone, we record basic information about the missing victims that the relative is looking for. That includes their name, appearance, identity number, and the home location," said Qin An, Deputy Director of Kunshan Public Service Center.

People in several nearby cities have lined up to donate blood for those injured in the accident.

The tragedy has dealt a blow to Jiangsu Province, whose capital city Nanjing is hosting the Youth Olympic Games this month. Vice Governor Shi Heping said in mid-July that thorough work safety inspections should be conducted ahead of the event.

Probes into past work safety cases showed local officials sometimes turn a blind eye to companies' illegal operations.

There was "very serious dereliction of duty," said Yang with the State Administration of Work Safety at a meeting on the investigation of the incident.

He said that Kunshan Zhongrong shoulders the majority of responsibility for the accident, but local government departments were also to blame for poor implementation of regulations.

Two senior executives at Kunshan Zhongrong have been placed under police custody. Suzhou, which has Kunshan under its jurisdiction, has suspended operations more than in 135 companies that produce heavy dust by polishing metals. The nearby city of Nanjing has also suspended operations of similar companies to ensure safety.

The investigation so far has found that the workshop was neither designed nor built as it should have been for such dangerous work. It has been revealed that there was a long list of violations of the country's safety rules: too many assembly lines; extraction fans were not installed at every work station; the electric facilities within the workshop were not up to code; the dust was not cleared daily as it should have been; and workers did not receive any safety training.

On August 4, China announced a nationwide safety overhaul on explosive materials. The campaign targets factories that process aluminum, magnesium, coal, wood, paper, tobacco, cotton and plastic, among other materials that could lead to fire hazards.

Email us at: yuanyuan@bjreview.com