Chinese survivors of toxic gas escape 'death zone'

CHONGQING, China -- Technicians earlier today sealed a burst gas well in China's southwest that had spewed toxic fumes, killing at least 198 people and forcing 41,000 to flee the remote, mountainous area, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The disaster was China's worst recent industrial accident, leaving a 10-square-mile "death zone" strewn with bodies of adults and children, some overcome as they tried to flee.

Earlier today, emergency crews began pouring thousands of cubic feet of mud down the well, which had spewed fumes for four days, Xinhua said.

The disaster began Tuesday night when a poisonous mix of natural gas and hydrogen sulfide erupted from the well, which Xinhua said was broken open by a drilling accident.

Some 9,185 people were treated for gas poisoning and other injuries, and 431 were still hospitalized -- 17 in critical condition, Xinhua said Friday.

Survivors and state media gave a harrowing account of their panicked escape from the disaster.

"I heard a roaring sound like huge flames and I smelled something burning," said Xiao Ninghu, a 33-year-old farmer reached by telephone at the school where he and other evacuees were staying. "I was in a panic. I was so frightened."

A reporter for the Shanghai Morning Post newspaper wrote an account of entering the hard-hit village of Xiaoyang, which abuts the gas field, and seeing at least six bodies. A 12-year-old boy and his mother lay on the road where they had tried to escape.

Tang Xiaoying, who lived 1,000 feet from the gas field, lost nine family members, including her 5-year-old daughter, the newspaper Chongqing Economic Times reported.

Tang was quoted as saying she had just put her children to bed when she smelled the foul gas and heard neighbors shouting that the well had exploded. Tang dressed her two daughters and ran outside with them, choking on the fumes, the newspaper said. She fainted on the road but woke after five minutes and struggled on to a neighbor's house.

Tang's 5-year-old daughter complained that she felt ill and "by the time they reached safety, the girl had stopped breathing," the newspaper said. It didn't say what happened to the other girl.

A merchant in Xiaoyang was credited with saving 400 people, piling residents into his truck and carrying them away from the gas in 20 trips, the newspaper said.

Xiao, the farmer, said all eight members of his family escaped from the village of Nongya. As they left, pigs and chickens lay dead in their farmhouse yard, he said.

The Chinese government on Friday already was using the disaster to fuel its campaign for tighter safety standards. Xinhua quoted a spokesman for the government's industrial safety agency as saying the disaster showed the need for an effective emergency rescue network, and that with such a network in place at the gas field, "the death toll would not have been so high."

The Chinese military sent 70 members of its antichemical-warfare corps to help with relief work, Xinhua said. It didn't say what the soldiers would be doing.

The gas field belongs to the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp., the China Daily reported. It said a CNPC subsidiary, PetroChina, began building a $400 million pipeline in August to pump natural gas from Chongqing to central China.

Two of those killed were gas field employees, while the rest were residents of the surrounding area, Xinhua said.

Kaixian county, where Gaoqiao is located, has some 15 natural gas wells, the Shanghai Morning Post reported. The county has a population of 1.4 million people.

Also Friday, trucks carrying water, bedding and instant noodles began arriving at camps set up for evacuees. Television news in Chongqing showed some being examined by doctors.

"I'm doing OK," said one woman. "I have enough to eat."