The Jilin chemical plant explosions were a series of explosions which occurred on November 13, 2005, in the No.102 Petrochemical Plant in Jilin City, Jilin Province, China, over the period of an hour. The explosions killed six, injured dozens, and caused the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents.
The cause of the blasts was initially determined two days after the blast: the accident site is a nitration unit for aniline equipment. T-102 tower was jammed up and was not handled properly. [1] The blasts were so powerful that they shattered windows at least 100 to 200 meters away; at least 70 people were injured and six were killed. [2] The fires were finally put out early in the morning of November 14. Over 10,000 people were evacuated from the area, including local residents and students at the north campus of Beihua University and Jilin Institute of Chemical Technology, [3] for fear of further explosions and contamination with harmful chemicals. The CNPC, which owns the company in charge of the factory, Jilin Petrochemical Corporation, asked senior officials to investigate the cause of the incidents. [4] The explosions were not thought to be related to terrorism, and the company told a press conference that they had occurred as a result of a chemical blockage that had gone unfixed.[ citation needed ]
The municipal government asked hotels and restaurants in the city to provide rooms for the evacuated people. Taxi companies also aided in the evacuation.
The explosion severely polluted the Songhua River, with an estimated 100 tons of pollutants containing benzene and nitrobenzene entering into the river. [5] Exposure to benzene reduces red blood cell count and is linked to leukemia.
An 80 km long toxic slick drifted down the Amur River, and the benzene level recorded was at one point 108 times above national safety levels. The slick passed first on the Songhua River through several counties and cities of Jilin province, including Songyuan; it then entered the province of Heilongjiang, with Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province and one of China's largest cities, being one of the first places to be affected. After traversing the eastern half of Heilongjiang including the city of Jiamusi, the slick converged into the Amur River at the mouth of the Songhua on the border between China and Russia. It passed by the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Russia, then entered the Russian region of Khabarovsk Krai in the Russian Far East, passing through the cities of Khabarovsk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur before exiting into the Strait of Tartary, itself a bridge between the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan portions of the Pacific Ocean.
On November 13, a water plant in Jilin city, Jilin, was closed. Several hydropower stations in the upper reach of Songhua River began to increase their discharge flow. On November 15, Songyuan, Jilin, stopped using water from Songhua River. By November 18, water supplies in Songyuan, Jilin, were partially suspended. Water supplies in Songyuan, Jilin, were restored on November 23.
Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang, is one of China's biggest cities with nearly ten million urban residents. It is also dependent on the Songhua River for its water supply.
On November 21, the city government of Harbin announced that water supplies would be shut off at noon November 22 for four days for maintenance. Some residents of Harbin have complained that water in some parts of the city had been shut off much earlier than announced. The city also ordered all bathhouses and carwashes to close. At the same time as the enigmatic announcement, rumours ran wild about the possible cause of the shutoff, with some suggesting that an earthquake was imminent (causing some people to camp outdoors) and others claiming that terrorists had poisoned the city's water supply. The news of the shutoff caused panic buying of water, beverages, and foodstuffs in the city's supermarkets, while train tickets and flights out of the area were soon sold out. Meanwhile, dead fish were appearing along the banks of the Songhua upstream from Harbin, further compounding the fears of Harbin residents.
Later on the same day, the city government issued another announcement, this time explicitly mentioning the Jilin explosions as the reason for the shutoff. The four-day shutoff was postponed to midnight on November 24. From 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on November 23, the city temporarily restored the water supply to allow residents to stock up on water, since the slick had not yet reached the city. In the afternoon of the same day, schools in Harbin were closed for one week. Also on November 23, Harbin residents began to receive water from fire trucks, and began voluntary evacuation.
The slick itself reached Harbin before dawn on November 24. On that day, the nitrobenzene level at Harbin was recorded at 16.87 times above the national safety level, while the benzene level was increasing, but had not yet exceeded national safety level. The nitrobenzene level doubled on November 25 (0.5805 mg/L), 33.15 times the national safety level, and began to decrease. The benzene level stayed under national safety level. At the same time, the tail of the slick left Zhaoyuan, Daqing, Heilongjiang. Premier Wen Jiabao of the State Council visited Harbin on November 26 to inspect the current situation, including the status of water pollution and water supply.
In response to the crisis, trucks transported tens of thousands of metric tons of water from surrounding cities, and thousands of tons of activated carbon from all over the country to Harbin. The government of Harbin also ordered the price of drinking water to be frozen at the level of November 20, in order to combat overpricing. In addition, Harbin is boring ninety-five more deep-water wells, to complement the existing 918 deep-water wells in the city. Fifteen hospitals were on stand-by for possible poisoning victims.
Harbin was not the only city to be affected. The slick passed through the city of Jiamusi, which, however, relies more heavily on underground water supply, and thus did not cut off water supplies. Nevertheless, on December 2, Jiamusi shut down its No. 7 Water Plant, which supplies around 70% of the city's water supply, and evacuated half of the population on its Liushu island.
It is reported that the entry of several tributaries into the Songhua, such as the Hulan River and the Mudan River, diluted the slick.
Water supply in Harbin was resumed in the evening of November 27.
The slick reached the Amur River at December 16, [6] and arrived at the Russian city of Khabarovsk four to five days later. In readiness, a communications hotline had been set up between Chinese and Russian agencies, and China offered water testing and purifying materials, including 1,000 tons of activated carbon to Russia. [7] Khabarovsk planned to shut off its water supply in "extreme circumstances", prompting residents to stock up on water.
After exiting the Amur River, the contaminants entered the Strait of Tartary and then the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan, which have Japan, Korea and Far-East Russia on its littorals.
Xie Zhenhua, China's Minister of State Environmental Protection Administration, resigned and was succeeded by Zhou Shengxian, former director of the State Forestry Administration. [8]
The Chinese press were critical of the authorities' response to the disaster. [9] Jilin Petrochemicals, which runs the plant that suffered the explosions, initially denied that the explosion could have leaked any pollutants into the Songhua River, saying that it produced only water and carbon dioxide. The media has focused mostly on Harbin, with almost no information on the slick's effect on cities and counties in Jilin province. Heilongjiang responded to the crisis a full week after the explosions occurred—their initial announcement attributed the impending shutoff to "maintenance", and gave only a day's notice; it was the second announcement on the next day that clarified the reason for the shutoff and postponed the shutoff. [10] In response, Vice Governor Jiao Zhengzhong of Jilin province and Deputy General Manager Zeng Yukang of CNPC have visited Harbin and expressed their apologies to the city. On 6 December, the vice-mayor of Jilin, Wang Wei, was found dead in his home. [11] This followed a threat by the Chinese government to severely punish anyone who had covered up the severity of the accident. The threat applied only to the initial explosion and not the extended cover-up of the benzene slick.
Khabarovsk is the largest city and the administrative centre of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, located 30 kilometers (19 mi) from the China–Russia border, at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri Rivers, about 800 kilometers (500 mi) north of Vladivostok. As of the 2021 Russian census, it had a population of 617,441. The city was the administrative center of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia from 2002 until December 2018, when the status was given to Vladivostok. It is the largest city in the Russian Far East, having overtaken Vladivostok in 2015. It was known as Khabarovka until 1893. As is typical of the interior of the Russian Far East, Khabarovsk has an extreme climate with very strong seasonal swings resulting in strong cold winters and relatively hot and humid summers.
The Amur, or Heilong Jiang, is the world's tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Manchuria/Northeastern China. The Amur proper is 2,824 kilometres (1,755 mi) long, and has a drainage basin of 1,855,000 km2 (716,000 sq mi). Including its source river Argun, it is 4,444 km (2,761 mi) long. The largest fish species in the Amur is the kaluga, attaining a length as great as 5.6 metres (18 ft). The river basin is home to a variety of large predatory fish such as northern snakehead, Amur pike, taimen, Amur catfish, predatory carp and yellowcheek, as well as the northernmost populations of the Amur softshell turtle and Indian lotus.
Harbin is a sub-provincial city and the provincial capital and the largest city of Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China, as well as the second largest city by urban population after Shenyang and largest city by metropolitan population in Northeast China. Harbin has direct jurisdiction over nine metropolitan districts, two county-level cities and seven counties, and is the eighth most populous Chinese city according to the 2020 census. The built-up area of Harbin had 5,841,929 inhabitants, while the total metropolitan population was up to 10,009,854, making it one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world.
Jilin is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Its capital and largest city is Changchun. Jilin borders North Korea and Russia to the east, Heilongjiang to the north, Liaoning to the south, and Inner Mongolia to the west. Along with the rest of Northeast China, Jilin underwent an early period of industrialization. However, Jilin's economy, characterized by heavy industry, has been facing economic difficulties with privatization. This prompted the central government to undertake a campaign called "Revitalize the Northeast". The region contains large deposits of oil shale.
Heilongjiang is a province in northeast China. It is the northernmost and easternmost province of the country and contains China's northernmost point and easternmost point.
The Songhua or Sunghwa River is one of the primary rivers of China, and the longest tributary of the Amur. It flows about 1,897 km (1,179 mi) from the Changbai Mountains on the China–North Korea border through China's northeastern Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces.
Jiamusi is a prefecture-level city in eastern Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China. Located along the middle and lower reaches of the Songhua River, it faces Russia's Khabarovsk Krai across the Ussuri River and the Heilongjiang. In 2018, Jiamusi had a GDP of RMB 101.2 billion with a 4.3% growth rate. Its population was 2,156,505 at the 2020 census whom 862,555 lived in the built up area comprising 4 urban districts.
Jilin City, alternately romanized as Kirin, is the second-largest city and former capital of Jilin province in northeast China. As of the 2020 census, 3,623,713 people resided within its administrative area of 27,166.37 square kilometres (10,488.99 sq mi) and 1,895,865 in its built-up area consisting of four urban districts. A prefecture-level city, it is the only major city nationally that shares its name with its province.
Heihe is a prefecture-level city of northern Heilongjiang province, China, located on the Russian border, on the south bank of the Amur (Heilong) River, across the river from Blagoveshchensk. At the 2020 census, 1,286,401 people lived in the prefecture-level city of whom 223,832 lived in the built-up area made of Aihui District.
Hegang, is a prefecture-level city in Heilongjiang province of the People's Republic of China, situated in the southeastern section of the Lesser Khingan Range, facing Jiamusi across the Songhua River to the south and Russia's Jewish Autonomous Oblast across the Amur River to the north. Hegang is one of the principal coal-producing cities in China. Hegang covers an administrative area of 14,679.88 km2 (5,667.93 sq mi) and according to the 2020 Chinese census, has a population of 891,271 inhabitants, of whom 545,404 lived in the built-up area made of 6 urban districts.
Yichun is a prefecture-level city on the Songhua river in Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China. The city is separated from Russia by the Amur River and has an international border of 246 kilometres (153 mi). At the 2010 census, Yichun has a total population of 1,148,126 while 729,202 people live in 15 districts separated by forests. The greening rate of Yichun is up to 83%. The nickname of Yichun is Lindu.
Jixi is a city in southeastern Heilongjiang Province, People's Republic of China. At the 2020 census, 1,502,060 people resided within its administrative area of 22,488.47 square kilometres (8,682.85 sq mi) and 560,118 in its built-up area made up of 3 out of 6 urban districts. Jixi is on the Muling River about 30 km (19 mi) from the border with Russia's Primorsky Krai and 120 km (75 mi) from Lake Xingkai. The mayor of Jixi is Zhang Changrong (张常荣) since June 2015. The area is one of the important coal mining bases in China. A crater on asteroid 253 Mathilde was named after the city.
The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is a major national oil and gas corporation of China and one of the largest integrated energy groups in the world. Its headquarters are in Dongcheng District, Beijing. CNPC was ranked fourth in 2022 Fortune Global 500, a global ranking of the largest corporations by revenue.
Songyuan is a prefecture-level city in west-central Jilin province, China.
Yilan County is a county of Heilongjiang Province, Northeast China, it is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang. It is more than 240 kilometres (150 mi) to the east-northeast of central Harbin. Its county seat, which is also called Yilan, is located near the confluence of the Mudan River with the Sungari. The easternmost county-level division of Harbin City, it borders Fangzheng County to the southwest, Tonghe County to the west, as well as the prefecture-level cities of Yichun to the north, Jiamusi to the northeast, Qitaihe to the southeast, and Mudanjiang to the south.
Fuyuan is a county-level city of the province of Heilongjiang, China. It is under the jurisdiction of the prefecture-level city of Jiamusi.
Events in the year 2005 in China.
This is a list of notable events relating to the environment in 2005. They relate to environmental law, conservation, environmentalism and environmental issues.
During mid-August 2013 parts of eastern Russia and northeastern China were stricken by heavy flooding. At least 85 people died from the floods and more than 105 others were left missing as of August 19. More than 60,000 homes were destroyed and 840,000 people evacuated from Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning provinces due to flooding which happened at the same time as flooding in China's southern Guangdong province.
The Jiansanjiang–Heixiazi Island Expressway, commonly referred to as the Jianhei Expressway and designated G1012, is an expressway linking the town of Jiansanjiang with Hexiazi Island, entirely in the prefectural-level city of Jiamusi in the Chinese province of Heilongjiang. It is 217 kilometres (135 mi) in length and opened on 13 August 2017. Prior to the national-level G designation, the highway was designated S14 by the province.