"Second time in history fire melted steel."
Posted on 04/18/2007 3:07:01 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Molten steel shower kills 32 workers in China
52 minutes ago
At least 32 workers were killed and two injured Wednesday when they were engulfed by molten steel at a metal factory in northeast China, the government said.
The accident was triggered when a steel ladle, with a capacity of 30 tonnes of liquid steel, sheared off from the blast furnace, spilling molten metal onto the factory floor some three metres (three yards) below.
The molten steel then engulfed an adjacent room where all the victims were gathered for a routine shift change, the State Work Safety Administration said in a report.
Rescuers were unable to get closer because of the intense heat of the liquid metal, it added.
The accident happened early in the day in a workshop at the Qinghe Special Steel Corporation in Tieling city in Liaoning province, which is a centre of heavy industry.
It was unclear how many people were working at the time of the accident, or whether the workers in the room were ending or beginning their shifts, or both.
Two machine operators were also injured.
The administration said an undisclosed number of "responsibles" were being investigated.
A steel company official said police had locked down the factory, usual practice in China when criminal investigations are launched into industrial accidents.
The safety administration said the factory employed some 300 workers, while the government-controlled Xinhua news agency said the plant was relatively new, established in 1987, and employed 650 workers.
Last year the factory produced 70,000 tonnes of steel, earning 300 million yuan (38.9 million dollars) in sales and hoped to increase production to 120,000 tonnes this year, the safety administration report said.
"The provincial and city leaders have arrived to direct the aftermath," an official at the steel company's office told AFP by phone.
"The whole area has been blocked off by the police, but we're still working in the office. Obviously we are all in a bad mood now."
The official said it was too early to determine the cause of the accident.
Industrial accidents occur frequently in China with more than 15,000 work place fatalities recorded in 12,800 mishaps at mines, companies and factories in 2005, according to government figures.
Currently 47 miners are missing following three mine accidents this week in the nation's dangerous mining industry.
The case like this would be a real challenge for CSI boys, ping!
Great. Coming soon to a supermarket near you.
This hurts just reading about it. How utterly horrifying.
Ouch...
I’ve watched steel being poured. It is scary just seeing it from a big distance. Can’t imagine this.
My first thought was, fried rice. Yup I’m going to heck.
They died a hard death.
Speical prayers for those who survived.
It’s a shame. Life is cheap to the Chinese.
That was always G-Man’s favorite way of disposing a corpse. “First, you find a steel mill...”
Don’t you mean The View?
I bet Rosie has a lovely omelette face today.
That’s a really rough way to exit this life....
"Second time in history fire melted steel."
Punch ‘em out quick. Get ‘em off the clock. Don’t pay ‘em if they ain’t working.
I had declined the offer to work on that particular rigging crew that night, simply because I knew of the problem.
Metal droplets dance on the skin like water tossed in a hot frying pan. - Where they go there is no flesh left.
I put the blame for the demise of our heavy industries squarely on the unions. - Even then I knew that steel couldn’t survive in this country under the union demands.
And it didn’t.
one should always prepare for a molten steel shower by taking a molten steel bath first.
Yup. and it destroys the nerve ending immediatly. generally at temps like that there is no pain. I have a scar on my knee from when I was a welder. It went to the bone. I never knew it happened till I was showering that night and found the wound
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.