Initial accounts of the blast, near the Hebei Shenghua Chemical Industry Co. plant in Hebei province, did not give a firm cause. But Chinese news reports, and images from the scene, indicated that a fiery explosion near the plant had set around 50 vehicles ablaze, including dozens of trucks, and sent a dark plume of smoke into the night sky.

An industrial safety official who gave only his surname, Wu, told The Paper, a news website in Shanghai, that one of the trucks lined up outside the plant to deliver chemicals had exploded, setting off a chain reaction that engulfed other trucks.

After decades of encouraging feverish industrial growth, the Chinese government has been trying to curb the large numbers of accidents in factories, mines and plants. Official statistics indicate that industrial accidents and deaths have fallen.

But the latest explosion was a jolting reminder that factories, especially chemical plants, have been troubled by deadly leaks, fires and blasts, often caused by lax management.

A worker at Hebei Shenghua who answered the phone Wednesday said that the latest explosion erupted outside the front gate of the factory in the city of Zhangjiakou, and not on its grounds. The worker declined to give her name.

Hebei Shenghua is a state-owned subsidiary of China National Chemical Corp., a large conglomerate, and makes resins, caustic soda, chlorine and other chemicals. As recently as last month, environmental inspectors said they had found lapses at Hebei Shenghua facilities, including poor sealing of workshops and dust leaking into the air.

The latest explosion could be heard from more than a mile away, news reports said, citing residents. Charred, smoldering trucks, some with their tires burned away, lay along the road.

Initial reports said that six people had been killed. But later Wednesday morning, officials in Zhangjiakou raised the death toll to 22, with the same number injured and receiving treatment in two hospitals.

The reports did not say whether the dead and injured were all drivers in the vehicles, or included workers or residents of nearby villages. Casualties may rise.

“Search and rescue work at the site, and an investigation into the cause of the accident, are still proceeding urgently,” the Zhangjiakou government said in a statement.

In China’s deadliest industrial accident of recent times, a cluster of explosions at a seaside chemical warehouse in 2015 in Tianjin, another northern Chinese city, killed 165 people. Government investigators concluded that sloppy management and perfunctory regulation were responsible.

This year, the Chinese government merged its safety management and emergency response agencies into a new Ministry of Emergency Management, and the accident will be one of its first big tests. The ministry said a vice minister, Fu Jianhua, had gone to the scene in Hebei.

The New York Times

Chris Buckley © 2018 The New York Times