China to carry out strict administration/supervision of hazardous chemicals on 14 August 2015

The State Council states that, for the purpose of preventing the similar accidents from happening again, more specific and thorough actions will be carried out to address safety issues of hazardous chemicals and combustible/explosive goods since 14 August 2015.

At around 23:30 on 12 August, the hazardous substance cargo warehouse of RuiHai International Logistics in Tianjin Port area caught on fire and exploded afterwards. Up to now, there are 114 death officially reported and more than 700 injured staying in hospitals. After this accident, many issues have been emerged from the water, including the lack of knowledge for handling the hazardous chemicals and combustible/explosive goods, misconduct of some related organizations that handle these dangerous goods, the lack of safety management of imported/exported dangerous goods in the port area, illegally handling of dangerous goods by the related persons and the lack of strict administration of these dangerous goods by some related governmental departments.

After this accident, great attention has been drawn by the Party Central Committee and the State Council. President Xi, Premier Li and other leaders have made great decisions to ensure the life safety of people, prevent the similar accident from happening again and strengthen the administration of dangerous goods. A thorough inspection will be carried out on the enterprises that produce, distribute, store and transport dangerous goods. Actions must be done immediately once the issues are found. The responsibilities of enterprises must be strengthened, the illegal operation of dangerous goods will be cracked down and scientific development strategies of the chemical industries should be made.

It is emphasized in the announcement that emergency response ability to the hazardous chemicals and combustible/explosive goods accidents must be further improved including the emergency plan, emergency rehearsal and emergency education.

A system of safety production responsibility will be built up to strengthen the accident investigation, to strictly crack down the illegal activities and to improve the safety administration/supervision in order to discover the potentcial risks before the accident happens.

It is stated in the announcement that the related organizations or governmental departments shall do what the announcement requires and submit a report regarding how the things are going before 15 September.

------ Above contents are translated by CIRS, please click here for Official Announcement -------