Final death toll from E China blast could be 'very high'

At least 69 people were killed and more than 180 were injured Saturday when a huge explosion tore through a factory in Kunshnan, east China's Jiangsu Province.

The blast ripped through a wheel hub-polishing workshop at the plant owned by Kunshan Zhongrong Metal Products Co about 7:30 am. The company makes wheels for American carmakers, including General Motors.

A preliminary investigation showed the devastation was likely the result of a dust explosion, which is caused when clouds of metal particles suspended in air meet an open flame, the ministry of public security said on its microblog.

Five company executives had taken into custody for questioning, Xinhua news agency said.

The Kunshan government said that 44 people working at the site at the time of the blast were killed instantly. More than 20 others succumbed to their injuries in hospital, it said.

As well as the factory workers, several visitors are believed to be among the victims.

Xinhua said that more than 180 people were being treated for various injuries. About 50 were rushed to local hospitals, while the rest were taken to facilities in nearby cities, including Suzhou, Wuxi, Nantong and Shanghai.

At the site of the blast, television images showed wrecked walls and heavy machinery that was hurled through windows. Local residents said they heard the explosion from 2 kilometers away.

"We heard a really loud blast about 7 am this morning so we rushed out of our dormitories," said Zhou Xu, a 26-year-old who works at a nearby factory.

"First the ambulances came, then as the news surfaced in the media, many families — mostly wives — rushed to the site to see if their husbands were OK."

Media reports claimed the majority of the victims in the blast were men in their 20s and 30s.

A security guard from a nearby plant, who declined to be named, said the impact from the blast was so great it shattered the windows of his guardhouse, about 500 meters away site.

Images online and on state television showed large plumes of black smoke billowing from a white low-rise building.

Many of the injured, who appeared badly burnt in scorched clothing, were shown lying on wooden pallets, waiting to be stretchered onto trucks, public buses and ambulances.

Four emergency blood-donation centers were set up in the city to assist casualties, some of whom were taken to Shanghai and other nearby cities for treatment later yesterday, China Central Television said.

Burn experts from a Shanghai hospital also arrived in Kunshan to help.

"In my 20 years of work, I've never seen so many patients with burns on over 80 percent of their bodies," a senior unnamed doctor was quoted as saying on CCTV's Weibo account.

He warned that the eventual death toll could be "very high."

By early afternoon in Kunshan, police had cordoned off the factory and blocked media access to a local hospital.

Authorities had also cleaned up the factory's exterior, and a crowd of bystanders and row of fire-trucks parked in the compound were the only outward signs of the calamity that had occurred hours earlier.

Kunshan Zhongrong, a Taiwan-funded company, employs 450 workers. It's core business is electroplating aluminum alloy wheel hubs, according to its website.

General Motors said in a statement: "We can confirm Zhongrong is a supplier to GM's global supplier Dicastal."

Kunshan is a center for Taiwan-funded businesses, with factories supplying vast automotive manufacturing industry.

Saturday's industrial tragedy is the worst in the country since a fire at a poultry slaughterhouse in northeast China's Jilin Province in June 2013, in which 120 people lost their lives.

Shanghai Daily - Agencies