REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BEIJING - Fire raged through a poultry plant in northeastern China on Monday, trapping workers inside a cluttered slaughterhouse and killing at least 119 people, reports and officials said.
Several dozen people also were hurt in the blaze in Jilin province's Mishazi township, which appeared to have been sparked by three early morning explosions, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The provincial fire department, on its microblog, attributed the blasts to an ammonia leak. The chemical is kept pressurized as part of the cooling system in meat processing plants.
The fire was one of China's worst industrial disasters in recent years, with the death toll the highest since a September 2008 mining cave-in that claimed 281 lives. State broadcaster CCTV quoted unidentified workers as saying the fire broke out during a change of shifts when about 350 workers were at the plant, owned by Jilin Baoyuanfeng Poultry Co.
It wasn't clear how many workers had been accounted for and a provincial government media official, who refused to give his name, said he expected the death toll to rise further as more bodies were recovered from the charred building. It was difficult for workers to escape because only one door to the plant was open while other exits were locked and the fire spread quickly, state media quoted survivors as saying.
Some employees raised the alarm shortly after a shift began at 6 am, and then the lights went out, causing panic as workers rushed to find an exit, employee Wang Fengya told Xinhua. "When I finally ran out and looked back at the plant, I saw high flames," Wang (44 years) was quoted as saying.
Xinhua said she and three other workers were sent to a hospital in the nearby provincial capital of Changchun. Another worker quoted by Xinhua, 39-year-old Guo Yan, said the emergency exit at her workstation could not be opened and she was knocked to the ground in the crush of workers seeking to escape through a side door.
"I could only crawl desperately forward," Guo was quoted as saying. "I worked alongside an old lady and a young girl, but I don't know if they survived or not."
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