BEIJING (Reuters) - A series of blasts during the delivery of a flammable gas at a chemical manufacturer in China on Wednesday killed 23 people and injured at least 22, the latest casualties in a series of industrial accidents that has angered the public.

A video of the blast scene broadcast by state media showed billowing black smoke and flames, while photographs showed rows of burnt-out cars and trucks.

An explosion during a delivery of acetylene set off a chain reaction among trucks parked along a road, leaving 50 vehicles damaged, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing the city’s fire fighting department.

The local government announced the casualty toll in a social media posting.

The acetylene was being delivered to the Haipoer New Energy Technology Company in Zhangjiakou city, in the northern province of Hebei, Xinhua reported.

Reuters was unable to contact Haipoer for comment.

All fires at the blast site had been extinguished, state media reported.

Production at the nearby Hebei Shenghua Chemical Industry Co was operating normally, Xinhua reported. A woman who answered the plant’s telephone had earlier told Reuters that production had been suspended.

Zhangjiakou, about 156 km (96 miles) northwest of Beijing, is set to host the 2022 Winter Olympics along with the capital.

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Public anger over safety standards has grown in China after three decades of swift economic growth has been marred by accidents ranging from mining disasters to factory fires.

In August 2015, 165 people were killed in a chemical warehouse explosion in the port city of Tianjin. The government found that the disaster was causes by improperly or illegally stored hazardous materials.

China has vowed to improve industrial standards, but environmentalists say they fear oversight weaknesses persist, including an opaque production process for hazardous chemicals. </s> 22 people died and 22 more were injured in an explosion near a chemical plant in China's city of Zhangjiakou, the city’s authorities said in a statement.

The fire after the explosion has destroyed 38 trucks and 12 cars, according to reports.

The blast occurred at 0:41 a.m. (16:41 on Tuesday GMT). ​The search and rescue operation as well as the investigation into the causes of the explosion are ongoing. </s> Eight people have been killed and five injured in an explosion and fire at a chemical plant in eastern China's Shandong province. The official Xinhua News Agency said the accident was triggered by an explosion of a liquefied gas tanker in a loading area at the Linyi Jinyu Petrochemical Co.

Start the conversation, or Read more at NewsOK.com. </s> BEIJING (AFP) - An explosion at an electronics component manufacturer in east China on Sunday (March 31) killed seven and injured five others, local authorities said.

The blast happened when a container for storing scrap metal burst into flames outside a factory in an export processing zone in Kunshan, Jiangsu province, the local government said on its official WeChat social media account.

“The cause of the accident outside Kunshan Waffer Technology is still under investigation,” the statement said.

The fire from the storage unit spread to a nearby factory workshop, it added, while one of the five people injured was in a critical condition.

The incident came barely a week after one of China's worst recent industrial accidents, in which an explosion at a chemical plant killed 78 people and injured hundreds.

The powerful explosion in the eastern city of Yancheng toppled several buildings in the industrial park, blew out windows of nearby homes and even dented metal garage doors. It prompted the State Council, China's Cabinet, to order a nationwide inspection of chemical firms.

Deadly industrial accidents are common in China, where safety regulations are often poorly enforced.

In November, a gas leak at a plant in the northern Chinese city of Zhangjiakou, which will host the 2022 Winter Olympics, killed 24 people and injured 21 others. Leaked chloroethylene came in contact with a fire source, causing the explosion, the authorities said in a February report that revealed the Chinese chemical firm responsible for the accident had concealed information and misled investigators.

In December, three students were killed in a blast at a Beijing university laboratory during a research experiment on wastewater treatment.

Last July, a blast at a chemical plant in south-west Sichuan province left 19 dead and 12 injured. It was later revealed the company had undertaken illegal construction which did not pass safety checks.

In 2015, China saw one of its worst industrial accidents when giant chemical blasts in the northern port city of Tianjin killed at least 165 people. The explosions caused more than US$1 billion (S$1.36 billion) in damage and sparked widespread anger at a perceived lack of transparency over the accident's causes and its environmental impact. </s> Eight people were killed and nine injured in an explosion and fire Monday at a chemical plant in eastern China's Shandong province, local authorities and media reports said. The accident was triggered by an explosion of a liquefied gas tanker in a loading area at the Linyi Jinyu Petrochemical Co.

Start the conversation, or Read more at NewsOK.com. </s> An explosion at a gas plant in China's central Henan province has killed at least 12 people and seriously injured 15 others, Chinese authorities said Saturday.

The blast rocked the factory in the city of Yima on Friday evening, damaging buildings and blowing out windows and doors within a 3-kilometer (2-mile) radius, state media reported.

Read more: Deadly chemical plant explosion hits Zhangjiakou

The official Xinhua news agency said the explosion occurred in the state-owned Henan Coal Gas facility's air separation unit.

Pictures from the site showed plumes of smoke rising from the factory premises

All production at the site has stopped. Officials said an investigation was underway to determine the cause of the incident.

Deadly industrial accidents are fairly common in China. Safety regulations are often poorly enforced, despite recent orders from the government in Beijing to improve standards at factories and power plants.

In March, a major blast at a chemical plant in eastern Jiangsu province killed 78 people and injured hundreds. The explosion led to two dozen arrests and prompted a nationwide inspection of chemical companies. One of the country's worst workplace accidents occurred in 2015, when a massive explosion at a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin killed 165 people.

Watch video 01:24 Share Blast in China kills at least 47 Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3FV3o Chemical plant explosion in China kills at least 47

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DW sends out a selection of the day's news and features. Sign up here. </s> BEIJING — Eight people were killed and nine injured in an explosion and fire Monday at a chemical plant in eastern China’s Shandong province, authorities and media reports said.

The accident was triggered by an explosion of a liquefied gas tanker in a loading area at the Linyi Jinyu Petrochemical Co. plant about 1 a.m., the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The plant’s owner was detained by police, and the injured were transported to a hospital.

Among the worst accidents was a 2015 explosion at a chemical warehouse in the port city of Tianjin that killed 173 people, most of them firefighters and police officers. </s> (Bloomberg) -- A blast at a Taiwan-listed company’s factory in China on Sunday killed seven people, the government says, just over a week after an explosion in the same eastern province left scores dead.

The explosion at a metal-processing plant owned by Waffer Technology (Kunshan) Ltd. also injured five people, the government of Kunshan, which is in Jiangsu province and borders Shanghai, said in a post on its Weibo social media account. The blast was caused by a container of scrap metal bursting into flames and setting a workshop ablaze just after 7 a.m., the government said.

Waffer Technology (Kunshan) is a major production base for Taiwan-listed Waffer Technology Corp., according to the latter’s website.

The industrial accident comes 10 days after an explosion at chemical plant in Chenjiagang, Jiangsu province. The official Xinhua News Agency updated the death toll for that incident to 78 on March 25. Police took people into custody over the incident in Chenjiagang, Xinhua reported earlier.

China has been seeking to make workplaces safer after industrial accidents that included a massive explosion in 2015 at a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin that killed 173 people. A blast in 2014 at an auto-parts plant in Suzhou, also in Jiangsu, killed 146 people.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Dandan Li in Beijing at dli395@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew Davis at abdavis@bloomberg.net, Philip Glamann, Stanley James </s> Beijing: A huge explosion outside a chemical plant in China’s northern Hebei province on Wednesday killed at least 22 people and left as many others injured, the second major industrial accident in the country in the last four days.

The blast occurred outside the Hebei Shenghua Chemical Industry in Zhangjiakou, Qiaodong district around 12:40 am, igniting a fire that engulfed nearby vehicles, the officials were quoted as saying by thepaper.cn, a Shanghai-based website.

An industrial safety official, identified only as Wu, said that one of the trucks lined up outside the plant to deliver chemicals had exploded, setting off a chain reaction that engulfed other trucks.

Chinese news reports, and images from the scene, indicated that a fiery explosion near the plant had set around 50 vehicles ablaze, including dozens of trucks, and sent a dark plume of smoke into the night sky.

The fire has now been contained, and a search operation is underway, authorities said. The injured have been taken to a nearby hospital.

Employees at the Shenghua plant said operation has been suspended out of safety concern.

Shenghua is affiliated with China Haohua Chemical Group, a subsidiary of State-owned ChemChina, which is ranked 167th among Global Fortune 500 enterprises.

Fu Jianhua, the vice-minister of emergency management, has led a team to the site to guide relief work, the report said.

Zhangjiakou, a city about 156 km northwest of Beijing, is set to host the 2022 Winter Olympics alongside the capital.

Industrial safety is a major concern in China, where requirements for the storage and transport of chemicals and other dangerous products are often weakly enforced.

This is the second major industrial explosion in China in the last four days.

Two people were killed and 57 injured in a warehouse explosion in northeast China’s Jilin Province on November 24.

A total of 370 houses have been damaged, with 15 having collapsed.

A massive explosion in 2015 traced to improperly stored chemicals killed at least 173 people in Tianjin, about an hour east of Beijing. (PTI)
A chain reaction of exploding trucks triggered by a blast during the delivery of acetylene gas at a chemical plant in Zhangjiakou, China, kills 23 people and injures at least 22 others.