Firefighters arrived at a factory in Kunshan, Jiangsu province [/color]after an explosion on August 2, 2014. (Photo / Xinhua)
[/color]NANJING - Police in east China's Jiangsu province have detained five people after an explosion killed 68 people and injured 187 others on Saturday morning, local authorities said.
Five managers at Kunshan Zhongrong Metal Products Co. Ltd have been placed under police custody, CCTV reported.
The blast happened at around 7:37 am inside a wheel hub polishing workshop owned by the company. Kunshan Zhongrong Metal Products is in Kunshan's economic and technological development zone, which is 70 kilometers away from Shanghai. Its website said the company has 450 employees and listed General Motors as a client.
There were 261 workers at the site when the explosion happened. Rescuers pulled out over 44 bodies at the site while 24 others died in hospitals.
Officials have said the explosion was a work safety accident, and the blast was probably caused by flames igniting dust inside the workshop.
Wang Yong, China's state councilor, was heading to the site on the requests of President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang as a representative of Beijing.
[/color]Victims gather outside the gate of a factory after an explosion in Kunshan, east China's Jiangsu province on August 2, 2014. (Photo / AFP)
[/color]Photos circulated on social networking sites showed charred bodies of victims were placed on trucks or lying in front of the factory as plumes of black smoke billowed from factory. Other photos showed hospitals crowed with patients with burns.
Xinhua reporters at the scene said the blast left two large holes in the factory's wall, with large equipment and pieces of broken glass scattered around.
Local health authorities said most of the injured suffered burns to the body and in the respiratory system. Some of them have been transferred from Kunshan to nearby cities of Suzhou, Wuxi and Shanghai for treatment.
The Kunshan branch of the Red Cross Society of China has asked locals to donate blood.
Relatives of factory workers said the workshop is very dirty and full of dust. A worker was reportedly forced to quit due to the dust problem.
A man surnamed Cheng said he could not contact his wife who had been working in the factory. He said conditions were "the worst" in Kunshan's industrial development zone.
He said that in the dusty environment, the only protection workers were given was a mask and gloves while air filtering equipment is basically useless.
According to Cheng, workers earned 5,000 yuan ($830) per month, but the staff turnover rate is high due to the heavy workload. The factory has 20 to 30 new employees every day and some are not trained at all.
Seven doctors and nurses specializing in burn treatment at Shanghai's Ruijin Hospital have arrived at Kunshan to aid local hospitals now "crowded with injured patients," according to the hospital.
The site has been cleared and further investigation is underway.
http://www.chinadailyasia.com/nation/2014-08/02/content_15154118.html[/color]