Workers have abandoned a third attempt to cap a poisonous gas leak from a drilling site in south-western China that has forced the evacuation of almost 15 000 residents, state media reported on Thursday.
Officials said they were struggling to raise supplies and funds for the evacuees, lending a note of urgency to the capping work that began soon after the leak was discovered on Saturday in Kaixian county, in the remote hills of the Chongqing region.
An effort to seal the leak from a natural gas well was called off late on Wednesday due to ”unknown conditions” emerging from deep inside, the Xinhua News Agency said.
The site lies amid rolling hills and river valleys that could easily trap deadly gasses. A leak from a well in the same area in December 2003 spread hydrogen sulfide across mountain villages, killing 243 people and sickening thousands in one of China’s deadliest industrial accidents ever reported.
No injuries have been reported in the latest incident. Workers have been burning off poisonous gases emerging from the well to prevent them collecting.
A spokesperson for the Kaixian government news office said workers were still trying to cap the leak, but said he had no details and refused to give his name. A spokesperson for the Chongqing government said she had no updated information. She also declined to give her name, as is common among Chinese bureaucrats.
Photographs taken at the scene on Wednesday showed workers in red jumpsuits with oxygen tanks strapped to their backs standing near three plumes of flame — burning gas — spouting from the ground and a small stream.
A fire truck and several police cars were parked alongside apparently abandoned houses nearby.
Gas-field workers first noticed gas bubbling up from the stream about 1km from the wellhead on Saturday, Xinhua said. River water was being tested and people downstream told not to drink from it.
Emergency workers first tried on Monday to seal the well with a combination of cement and lime, but stopped after gas pressure grew to dangerous levels near the mouth of the well, Xinhua reported. A similar effort was called off on Tuesday.
The country’s top industrial-safety official, Li Yizhong, flew to the area late on Tuesday to coordinate efforts by emergency workers, the local government and officials of the well’s owner, state-run oil giant China National Petroleum Corporation.
Only about 5 000 evacuees have found shelter with relatives, while about 9 000 others were being housed in 12 hastily built camps, Xinhua said.
Few emergency supplies were in stock and county officials have rushed to gather quilts and emergency clothing it said. — Sapa-AFP