Fire kills more than 100 at poultry plant in northeast China

Cause appears to be ammonia leak

BEIJING — A fire at a poultry plant in northeastern China trapped workers inside a cluttered slaughterhouse, killing at least 119 in one of China’s worst industrial disasters in years.

Several dozen other people were hurt in Monday’s blaze, which appeared to have been sparked by three early morning explosions, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The provincial fire department attributed the blasts to an ammonia leak. The chemical is kept pressurized as part of the cooling system in meat processing plants.

Lax safety standards

Monday’s accident highlighted the high human costs of China’s lax industrial safety standards. Many of China’s factories have sprung up in recent decades to drive the country’s rapid economic growth, but accidents and chemical spills are common.

Jason Yan, technical director in Beijing of the U.S. Grains Council, said safety considerations usually take a backseat in China to features designed to maximize production and energy efficiency.

“I’m sure they consider some aspects of safety design. However, I think safety, to me, is not the first priority in their design plan,” Yan said.

State media quoted survivors as saying it was difficult for workers to escape because only one door to the plant was open while other exits were locked and the fire spread quickly.

Panicked workers

Some employees raised the alarm shortly after the shift began at 6 a.m., and then the lights went out, causing panic as workers rushed to find an exit, employee Wang Fengya told Xinhua.

“When I finally ran out and looked back at the plant, I saw high flames,” Wang, 44, was quoted as saying. Xinhua said she and three other workers were sent to a hospital in the nearby provincial capital of Changchun.

Another worker quoted by Xinhua, 39-year-old Guo Yan, said the emergency exit at her station could not be opened and she was knocked to the ground in the crush of workers seeking to escape through a side door.

“I could only crawl desperately forward,” Guo was quoted as saying. “I worked alongside an old lady and a young girl, but I don’t know if they survived or not.”

The disaster killed 119 people, and 54 people were being treated in hospitals, the provincial government said on its microblog.