The State Council Safety Committee Office reported the ＂5 13＂ chlorine poisoning accident in Hebei.

　　Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, May 19 (Reporter Xu Bo, Ji Xiaobo) The State Administration of Work Safety announced on the 19th that the office of the Safety Committee of the State Council recently reported the "May 13" chlorine poisoning accident in Hebei, requiring all localities to focus on the rectification of "small, scattered and chaotic" chemical enterprises.

　　According to the report, on May 13th, a chlorine gas leakage accident occurred in Lixing Special Rubber Co., Ltd., Cangzhou City, Hebei Province, which led to the poisoning of the company’s employees and nearby people, and more than 1,000 people around were evacuated, resulting in 2 deaths and 25 hospitalizations.

　　After preliminary analysis, the direct cause of the accident is: Lixing Company illegally built a storage tank with a volume of 15 cubic meters to reduce the use cost of chlorine gas and avoid frequent switching of liquid chlorine cylinders, and privately increased the storage of liquid chlorine; In the early morning of May 13th, when discharging the liquid chlorine from the tank car, the discharge pipe behind the bottom valve of the tank broke, causing liquid chlorine leakage. Lixing Company failed to deal with the emergency at the first time, resulting in a large amount of liquid chlorine leakage for a long time, which caused poisoning of on-site employees and nearby personnel.

　　The circular requires that the safety committees of local people’s governments at all levels should closely combine the ongoing comprehensive management of hazardous chemicals safety, and take the investigation and rectification of "small, scattered and chaotic" chemical enterprises as an important task and an effective carrier to prevent and contain serious accidents.