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Cars are scattered like toys in the aftermath of Friday’s oil pipeline explosions in Qingdao, China. The death toll rose to 52 on Sunday.
BEIJING (AP) — China’s president on Sunday visited hospitalized victims of deadly explosions that ripped through residential and commercial roads from a ruptured pipeline owned by the country’s largest oil refiner.
The official death toll from the blasts rose to 52 earlier in the day after rescuers found more bodies in the aftermath of Friday’s industrial accident in eastern China. Eleven people were still missing, according to the information office of the government of the port city of Qingdao.
ALY SONG/REUTERS
A worker on Sunday cleans up leaked oil after explosions of a Sinopec Corp. oil pipeline in eastern China.
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Rescue efforts were continuing, the information office said. It said earlier that 136 people had been injured, 10 of whom were in critical condition.
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Shattered glass covers the inside of this restaurant after the pipeline explosions Friday in China.
The accident was the deadliest involving state-owned company Sinopec Corp.
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REUTERS
An injured woman is transferred to a hospital after a Sinopec Corp. oil pipeline caught fire and exploded in China on Friday.
State broadcaster CCTV showed President Xi Jinping visiting a hospital in Qingdao. He spoke with and held the hand of an elderly patient, and talked to and patted the arm of another. He also told a group of doctors and nurses to put all their efforts into helping the injured.
The pipeline ruptured and leaked for about 15 minutes onto a street and into the sea before it was shut off. Hours later, as workers cleaned up the spill, the oil caught fire and exploded in two locations, the city government said.
ALY SONG/REUTERS
Rescuers walk past blackened, soot-covered car wreckage on a damaged road covered with debris Saturday, the day after the explosion of a Sinopec Corp. oil pipeline in Qingdao, China.
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Sinopec’s expansion of petrochemical projects has met with resistance from members of the public, and Friday’s blasts will likely add to growing concern about safety and environmental risks.
REUTERS
A damaged car is perched on a chunk of blown-up road after the oil pipeline explosion in eastern China that happened Friday.
Sinopec apologized Saturday for the explosions, which ripped slabs of pavement and overturned vehicles. It said it would investigate and “give timely reports.”
About 18,000 residents were evacuated following the explosions, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
CHINA DAILY/REUTERS
Firefighters clean up an oil spill at a ditch near the site of an exploded Sinopec Corp. oil pipeline in Qingdao, China, on Friday.
It was China’s second-deadliest industrial accident of the year, after a chicken factory fire in June in northeastern Jilin province that killed 121 people.
