Smoke lingers after deadly China chemical plant blast

Residents near a chemical plant in eastern China are taking stock of damage to their homes after a huge and still unexplained blast killed at least five people, spewed out chemicals and shattered windows as far as a kilometre away.

Plumes of black and grey smoke lingered over the plant at Gaomi, a city in the eastern province of Shandong, a day after the explosion on Tuesday, which the official Xinhua news agency said had injured 19, with six more missing.

Farmer Yu Qianming said he and his wife had moved their grandchild elsewhere as a precaution, although they felt safe in their home as long as the wind kept blowing in a northerly direction.

His family had escaped without injury, the 69-year-old said, while showing Reuters roofing material that fell and windows that shattered in the blast.

Local officials have yet to issue the results of air quality tests on Tuesday, after a column of orange and black smoke billowed from the plant.

On Wednesday, vehicles patrolled the perimeter of the site that sprawls over more than 47ha, while drone footage showed multi-storey buildings flattened by the blast.

Liu Ming, a 60-year-old who lives 500m away, said she was considering moving after her home and clothing store suffered extensive damage, though she did not have any firm plans yet.

She showed Reuters window frames pulverised by the blast, with shards of glass strewn among boxes of thread and clothes on the floor.

Several shops away, another store owner had a minor head wound from the blast, which happened while he was eating lunch.

Set up in August 2019 in the Gaomi Renhe chemical park, the Shandong Youdao Chemical plant develops and makes chemicals used in pesticides and pharmaceuticals, the company said on its website, with more than 300 employees at the site.

Blasts in recent years at chemical plants in China have included one in the northwest region of Ningxia in 2024 and another in the southeastern province of Jiangxi in 2023.

In 2015, two massive explosions at warehouses of hazardous and flammable chemicals in the port city of Tianjin that killed more than 170 people and injured 700 prompted tougher laws on storage of chemicals.

Another blast that year at a Shandong chemical plant killed 13 people.