A chemical plant in Qijiang, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, exploded after being hit by lightning Thursday night, destroying the three-story building and leaving 19 workers missing and 10 injured.

Local reports say that the entire latex plant exploded when lightning struck it during a thunderstorm. Debris and pieces of equipment were found hundreds of meters away.

Environmental monitoring revealed no toxic gas in the air and although potentially explosive chemicals remained on the site, they were being removed and experts said that the possibility of a second explosion was very small.

The factory, established in 1956, employs more than 200 workers to produce explosives. Its emulsified explosive is a newly developed product.

Qijiang is a major industrial city located on the outskirts of Chongqing.

On Thursday afternoon in Gongyi City, Henan Province, three tanks containing several dozen tons of paraffin wax caught fire at the Wufa Auxiliary Chemical Plant, according to China Youth Online.

The fire started at about 1:00 PM and nearly 1,000 firefighters, police and volunteers battled for more than seven hours to extinguish it. Several explosions occurred during the blaze and leakage of lethal chlorine was reported. There were no casualties.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

At least three workers were buried in landslide Thursday morning in the northern suburbs of Hohhot, the capital of the north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said a local source.

The landslide occurred at about 11:00 AM Thursday in a quarry at Daqingshan Mountain. Three to five workers were there at the time, but the number buried in the landslide is not yet known. Rescue teams sent by the city government were unable to search for the missing people as more slides and cave-ins continued to occur.

Production had been stopped at the quarry for some time, according to the source, who said that the workers were there to guard equipment left at the site.

Also on Thursday, the General Office of the State Council, China's cabinet, issued a notice requiring government organizations and businesses to ensure workplace safety during the upcoming weeklong International Labor Day holiday.

(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency, China.org.cn, April 22, 2005)