Gas blow-out ‘death zone’ leaves 200 dead

A GAS well blow-out in south-west China turned a 10 square mile area into a death zone, killing nearly 200 people as they slept or scrambled to escape a cloud of toxic fumes, officials and state media said yesterday.

Bodies of farmers and livestock were scattered over a wide area after the well, being drilled in mountains 200 miles northeast of Chongqing city, burst on Tuesday.

"The poisonous gas hovering in the air made an area of 25 sq km (10 sq miles) a death zone as many villagers were intoxicated by the fumes in their sleep," the China Daily newspaper said.

An operation to seal the gas well planned for yesterday had been postponed for 24 hours for safety reasons.

About 41,000 people, most of them farmers, were evacuated from villages within a radius of three miles from the remote accident site, where the temperature at night drops to freezing.

Eighty-two separate rescue teams scoured surrounding villages for survivors in a search that was due to conclude early Saturday. Dozens of fire trucks and ambulances stood by.

"They have not found any more dead bodies today," a county government official said.

State television showed flames spewing from the well, illuminating fog-shrouded mountains after the gas was deliberately ignited to consume it.

"It sounds like an airplane passing by," said a television correspondent, standing just 10 metres (33 feet) from the flames as machinery was being brought in to seal it.

Newspapers showed pictures of children in hospital, their eyes forced shut by gas, and of dead livestock on roads. Many survivors were poisoned and had acid burns on their skin and lungs, doctors said.

The Chongqing Morning Post quoted one survivor who lived within 100 yards of the well, 41-year-old peasant Liao Yong. He described a hissing black mist of gas that chased him as he fled in his farm vehicle with more than 20 relatives and neighbours hanging on.

After driving several kilometres, Liao no longer sensed the strange odour of the fumes and stopped his vehicle to look back. "But within just minutes, Liao Yong again caught whiff of the smell and hastily drove on."

"Most of the bodies were found at home or by the roadside or in a valley," the county official said.

"Chickens, horses and pigs were also killed."

About 740 people were still being treated in hospital, while outpatients with ailments such as conjunctivitis numbered nearly 10,000, the official said.

State media called the accident the worst of its kind in China, which has a notoriously poor work safety record. A gas blow-out in 1998 in neighboring Sichuan province killed 11 drillers.

It was the second Christmas disaster in three years in China.

At least 309 people died during a Christmas Day disco party when fire swept through a commercial centre in the central city of Luoyang in 2000.

When the well erupted, it spewed a high concentration of natural gas and toxic sulphurated hydrogen 100 feet into the air.

Only after the gas was set ablaze were rescue workers able to enter the area, vice mayor Wu said.

Among the dead were 39 children under 10 and 46 people over 60, a report said. Two of the dead were well workers, the rest were farmers and their families.

Chongqing and Sichuan are among China's major natural gas producing areas. The well where the blow-out occurred is owned by China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), parent of oil major PetroChina.

In one of the world's worst industrial disasters, a poisonous gas leak at a Union Carbide plant in India in December 1984 killed 3,000 people. Thousands more died in the following years and tens of thousands were left with lifelong illnesses.