Forty-four rescue workers were rushed to hospital after being
poisoned by fumes from a chemical tanker punctured in a pile-up on
a highway in central China's Hubei Province on Thursday.
Four drivers were also killed in the eight-vehicle crash and
another rescue worker was crushed to death as emergency vehicles
hurried to the scene shortly after 4 AM.
Firefighter Chen Ping, 20, of the Zhijiang Fire Brigade, died
when a bus rushing to the scene collided with an ambulance, which
then hit him from behind.
And local farmer Fang Yong from nearby Jinshan Village was also
reported to have had his right foot burnt by the chemicals as they
washed down on to his land, according to the Wuhan Evening
News.
By Friday night, 41 of the rescue workers -- a mix of policemen,
firefighters and villagers -- were out of danger, following rapid
treatment at a nearby hospital. Meanwhile the three more seriously
injured were described as stable.
The severe accident is thought to have been caused by heavy fog,
which shrouded the Hankou-Yichang highway in the early hours of
Thursday morning.
The tanker, believed to contain 20 tons of dimethyl sulphate,
began to leak shortly after it was hit from behind by another
truck. The 44 rescue workers began to feel pain in their throats
and eyes, while some rescuer's skin started flare-up, as they
helped clear the chemicals.
Doctors said dimethyl sulfate fumes are irritative and can be
inhaled or absorbed by skin, causing burnt eyes, skin and damage to
the respiratory system.
He Qing, another firefighter with the Zhijiang Fire Brigade, who
stayed in the office while colleagues answered the call, said all
14 firefighters who went to the scene were now in hospital.
Local environment protection workers later dealt with the
pollution on the road and nearby farmland with the hope of
minimizing the polluted area.
Normal traffic flow on the highway did not resume until 14 hours
after the crash at 6 PM on Thursday, when the leaked chemicals were
finally cleared from the road and the damaged vehicles dragged
away.
This is the second serious traffic accident on the highway this
year. On March 25, a crash in which a bus collided with a truck
killed 12 and injured another 41 people.
Luo Qingquan, governor of Hubei, ordered
transportation departments to "learn a lesson from the
accident."
"We should strengthen our supervision for the foggy sections of
our highways," he said.
(China Daily May 20, 2006)