Quick Take: Fourteen Face Criminal Charges Over Hubei Power Plant Blast

(Beijing) — At least 14 employees at a coal power plant in central Hubei province were facing criminal charges or were being investigated in connection with a blast that killed 22 and left another four critically injured last year, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The explosion at the power plant in the city of Dangyang on August 11, 2016 was caused by a breach of quality control and safety rules, Gong Xiaofeng, a deputy director of the Hubei Provincial Bureau of Work Safety, told the official Xinhua News Agency.

Nozzles installed on the main pressurized steam pipe at the power plant were of substandard quality and this led to a leak and the explosion, Gong told a press conference in the provincial capital Wuhan on Thursday. Workers failed to fix the leak on time, he added.

Work place safety issues remain a grave concern in China in spite of drop both in the number of work place accidents and resulting deaths last year, Yang Huanning, director of State Administration of Work Safety, told a national conference in January.

The number of workplace accidents in China dropped by 5.8% to about 60,000 last year and the number of deaths was down 4.1% to 41,000 in the same period, government data shows.

However, the number of deadly accidents at workplaces in China actually spiked in the second half of the year as enforcement of safety regulations slackened, said Yang without offering further details.

Among the 14 employees arrested, nine have been referred by police to the local prosecutors' office to face charges and the other five are being investigated over possible dereliction of duty.

A total of 30 company executives and government employees were also demoted or warned in accordance with party and government rules over the deadly blast, which caused more than 23 million yuan in damages, according to Gong.

Contact reporter Li Rongde (rongdeli@caixin.com)