Chinese agency sheds light on deadly accident

The Chinese State Administration of Work Safety has released details of its investigation into a July 28 accident that killed 22 people in Jiangsu province (C&EN, Aug. 7, page 17). A four-page report in Chinese on the agency's website says the firm where the accident happened, Yancheng Fuyuan Chemical, was initiating production at a new 4,000-metric-ton-per-year 2,4-dichlorofluorobenzene unit, not a fluorobenzene plant as earlier reported. The primary cause of the accident, according to investigators, was an excessive temperature rise during production of the intermediate 2,4-dinitrofluorobenzene, caused by the failure of a cooling-water system. The agency blamed management's cavalier attitude toward worker safety. Fuyuan, the agency says, is a Sino-German joint venture, 31% of which is owned by the German trading company CCI.