So far:
-- Death toll has risen to 78 (as of Monday afternoon)
-- 566 people still in hospital, including 13 in critical condition and 66 seriously injured (as of 12 pm, Monday)
-- Medical monitoring at hospitals shows no cases of chemical poisoning
-- State Council orders nationwide inspection of chemical industries
-- School resumes today
-- Teams look for possible toxic substance leaks
An additional 14 people were found dead in the latest search and rescue operation after an explosion in East China's Jiangsu province, bringing the death toll to 78, local authorities said on Monday afternoon.
A total of 56 dead have been identified, local authorities said at a news conference, leaving 22 unaccounted for.
Among the 28 missing, 25 have been confirmed to be dead via DNA, with three confirmed safe.
A total of 566 injured people were still receiving medical care in the hospital on Monday, including 13 in critical condition and 66 seriously wounded. Thirty-eight were discharged on Monday, according to the news conference.
Medical monitoring at hospitals near the blast site shows no cases of chemical poisoning, the rescue headquarters said on Monday.
In a notice released on Monday, the State Council has ordered a national inspection on potential hazards of dangerous chemicals and safety assessments on all chemical industry parks across the country.
Schools and kindergartens reopened on Monday after the explosion forced their closure on Friday.
At the same time, rescuers were busy scrutinizing the chemical plants that were damaged in the blast in Xiangshui county of Yancheng city for possible toxic substance leaks.
The blast occurred on Thursday at the Tianjiayi chemical plant in Xiangshui county's Chenjiagang Chemical Park, with a fire that spread to 16 enterprises nearby.
State Council orders nationwide inspection of chemical industries
An urgent notice issued by the Work Safety Committee of the State Council asked authorities related to safety production nationwide to strictly follow the instruction President Xi Jinping made after the Thursday blast in a chemical industry park in Xiangshui county of Jiangsu.
The notice from the State Council, released on Monday, deployed a thorough examination on potential hazards of dangerous chemicals across the country. All chemical industry parks should undergo safety risk assessments, it said.
Local safety production authorities should conduct careful inspections on nitration-related processing plants and enterprises that produce or store nitrated compounds, according to the notice.
Law enforcement in the sector should be intensified and not be a flash in the pan. "(We should) make the law enforcement 'bite', and severely punish those enterprises and individuals that are indifferent to laws and lives," the notice said.
Since the blast, six rounds of search and rescue missions have been launched, and the search area has been expanded from 1.1 square kilometers to 2 km, Cao Lubao, mayor of Yancheng, said at a news conference on Sunday afternoon.
He said that more than 4,500 medical workers and 116 ambulances participated in the rescue work. The National Health Commission sent 16 leading experts and Jiangsu sent 65 experts from the province's renowned hospitals to treat the injured.
"As of Sunday noon, 604 victims remain in 16 hospitals. Another 59 people have been discharged after treatment," he said.
Li Shaodong, deputy head of the Jiangsu Commission of Health, said specialized treatment plans have been made for every patient. "Psychologists have also been sent to help the recovery of the patients, their relatives and rescuers."
Workers have been sent to comfort the families of the deceased, including 43 medical workers to accompany senior family members. The bodies will be treated according to ethnic and religious customs, said Li.
Sang Shulou, 36, was discharged from the hospital after receiving treatment on his face. Sang, with long bloody scars on his cheek, mouth and nose, said that he was blessed to have survived the blast that happened just 100 meters away from him.
"I was driving a car passing the explosion site and suddenly felt the car pushed away fiercely by a wave," he said.
According to rescue headquarters, more than 1,600 houses near the explosion site have been repaired, and the remaining houses that suffered slight damage, such as broken windows and doors, will be repaired in a week. Owners of houses beyond repair will get financial compensation or move to newly-established communities.
The State Council, China's Cabinet, set up a special investigation group for the blast. The group on Saturday said the probe would be thorough and with no leniency. It also severely criticized the local government and the company involved for not learning lessons from previous environmental violations and failing to make effective rectifications.
Official records show that the Jiangsu Tianjiayi Chemical Company, where the explosion took place, had been punished several times previously for using safety loopholes and violating environmental protection regulations. Chenjiagang Chemical Park experienced several similar safety accidents in past years, too.
On Saturday, the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China Jiangsu Provincial Committee, the province's top leadership, held a meeting on measures to be taken.
Lou Qinjian, Party chief of Jiangsu, said at the meeting that the province should learn the "bloody lesson" and "retrospect from the soul".
The incident is the result of poor implementation of the responsibility system for production safety, as well as bureaucracy and formalism in supervision, according to a statement released after the meeting.
Jiangsu immediate launched safety inspections on chemical production, transportation and storage facilities after the incident. Operations will be suspended once any safety hazard is spotted. If a company fails to eliminate the hazards in a specified time, it will be shut down. Those who are responsible for rectification work will be held accountable for life, the statement said.
School resumes on Monday
Cao, the mayor of Yancheng, said on Sunday afternoon that repair work on schools damaged in the explosion was almost completed. Classes will resume on Monday.
Parents of nearby primary schools and kindergartens received text messages that the schools would reopen on Monday morning. Teachers and government workers had cleaned the classrooms and arranged the desks in order.
Gu Wei, who works about 350 kilometers away from his home near the chemical plant, rushed home on hearing the news of the blast on Thursday. Concerned about safety, he sent his 16-year-old son to a relative's home in a nearby township soon after he arrived at home that night.
Gu said he would send his son back home, where window glass was shattered by the explosion, on Sunday evening after the school announced it would open Monday.
But the 35-year-old still has some concerns about the environment, as his home in Sigang village is only about 4 km from the chemical industry park, where the explosion occurred.
"It's a time bomb," he said.
Measures taken to curb pollution
Strong measures have been taken to avoid subsequent disasters, particularly to prevent polluted water in the chemical park from flowing out.
Cao said that thorough inspections have been conducted in chemical plants on the site to prevent further pollution.
He said that these plants stored a large amount of chemical substances, and some sulfuric acid and nitric acid was leaked from the storage tanks due to the explosion.
"Environmental experts and managers of the chemical park have been summoned to research the water treatment and environmental protection issues," said Cao.
"Details of the categories, amounts and storage methods of chemicals are being carefully examined and they'll be handled with great caution to prevent secondary disasters," he said.
Li Ganjie, minister of Ecology and Environment, also held a meeting on pollution control after the blast. He demanded a comprehensive monitoring of the local environment, and all-out efforts to clean solid waste in the park and prevent polluted waters in the park from entering the Guanhe River, which runs into the Yellow Sea. The river's estuary is only a little more than 10 km away from the park.
Rapid tests on water samples collected on Friday found the water of three rivers inside the park was polluted by volatile organic compounds - chloroform, methylene chloride, dichloroethane and toluene. But no volatile organic compounds were detected in the waters of the three rivers outside the park.
The polluted water bodies of the three rivers had been cordoned off and so far no pollution was detected in waters outside of the park, according to rescue headquarters.
The Ministry of Ecology and Environment also required special attention for possible rainfall and its impact on handling the aftermath of the blast.
Wei Zheng, a worker with the environmental monitoring station of Funing county, who was sent to Xiangshui county for assistance, said that he got water samples from inside the park and the nearby Guanhe River every three hours for analysis.
"We analyze the chemical remains in the water, including aniline, nitrobenzene and VOC. Environmental protection workers have established eight water monitoring stations inside and near the chemical park," Wei said.
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