2017-05-03
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Villagers angered by a chemical leak stage a protest at Hebei Xingfei Chemical Co. factory near Xingtai city in the northern Chinese province of Hebei, May 3.
Photo courtesy of an RFA listener.
Thousands of people protested in the northern Chinese province of Hebei on Wednesday after a leak at a chemical plant releases toxic gases into the air.
Residents said the leak was emitted on Apr. 29 from the Hebei Xingfei Chemical Co. factory in Dongwang township, near Hebei’s Xingtai city following a recent fire.
An official circular issued by the Ningjin county government, which administers Dongwang township, said there had been a fire in a pipeline carrying trichloroisocyanuric acid, “resulting in the emission of irritating gas that was blown to a few villages downwind, and causing vomiting, coughing and other difficulties.”
“The Ningjin county government is extremely concerned about the incident and is carrying out educational work with local people,” the circular said. “We have also instructed the county and [Xingtai] municipal environmental protection bureaus to investigate enterprises in the vicinity.”
Residents of several villages near the site reported vomiting and fainting, while thousands have gathered outside the factory gates, blocking the road and demanding the plant’s relocation for the past few days.
“All the farming communities near our township have gone over there to demand that the chemical factory halt production,” a Dongwang resident surnamed Li told RFA on Wednesday.
“All of the residents of the nearby villages, who were worst affected by the pollution, are there, too,” he said. “There are so many people there today, several thousand.”
“They are all wearing face-masks and demonstrating at the gates,” Li said. “The police haven’t dared to move in to disperse us yet, and we haven’t done anything to escalate the situation.”
“We just want to the stop the factory from operating,” he said. “We are just stopping any vehicles from coming in or out.”
Calls to the Hebei Xingfei Chemical Co. factory rang unanswered during office hours on Wednesday.
Round-the-clock blockade
Local sources said the blockade has continued round the clock since the leak occurred.
A resident surnamed Zhao said the authorities are more concerned with profit that with the well-being of local people, and have allowed dozens of chemical plants to start up in the area.
“There are more than a dozen chemical plants in this area, and we can smell [the emissions] when the wind blows from there,” Zhao said. “There is a very high cancer rate in the villages nearby, and there was compensation paid for pollution of the crops.”
“But our opponents are rich and powerful, so there’s little we can do,” he said.
“This recent leak was really serious, and people decided they wouldn’t stand for it any more, and would stand up for their lives, and their environment,” he said. “This was a spontaneous protest.”
Li said the pollution from the nearby plants smelled “awful” and had also affected local people’s mental health.
“We have difficulty breathing, and the smell of the emissions is really awful,” he said. “It’s extremely acrid and caustic, and the smell is still just as strong near the factory as it was before.”
He said local officials have called on protesters to wait for environmental tests to be completed before they take a decision about how to deal with the factory.
“But there has been no clear plan of action to resolve things,” Li said.
Repeated calls to the Dongwang township government offices rang unanswered during office hours on Wednesday, while calls to the Xingtai municipal government resulted in a repeated busy signal.
