Efforts Put into Stabilizing Bitten CityFive days after the explosion at a fireworks plant in Guangdong's Jiangmen, local efforts are turning from the rescue operation to deal with the explosion's aftermath and ways to prevent an accident like this from happening again.So far, all 33 victims have been identified and nearly 50 that were injured have been treated and released from the hospital. Over 130 factories in the city have been carefully inspected to check their fire prevention facilities. As a result 25 were closed down and another 20 were ordered to make immediate improvements. He Xiansong, Jiangmen's vice-mayor, said yesterday that the families of the victims have calmed down and moved their attention to the compensation plan. The Ping'an Insurance Co of China and the Life Insurance Co of China also made a public notice yesterday urging the residents and businesses that reported and claimed damages to "help the enterprises recover production and the injured get healthy as soon as possible," according to the insurance agents in Jiangmen. Statistics are incomplete, but estimates indicate that the disaster created a direct economic loss of over 44 million yuan (US$5.3 million), including the destruction of over 1,200 buildings and machinery equipment at 56 neighbouring factories. Meanwhile, to protect residents from being infected with diseases that may hit due to the hot steamy weather, Jiangmen Epidemic Prevention Department has sterilized the explosion site, as well as the neighbourhood within a radius of several hundred metres. After a thorough search of every inch of the explosion site, explosion experts, including those from the Ministry of Public Security, said that it's still too early to determine the cause of the explosion. |
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