Six given jail terms for gas well blowout
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-09-04 17:01

Six people on Saturday were sentenced to jail terms ranging from three to six years on charges of key responsibility accident crime in a major gas well blowout that took place in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality late last year.

Two children, whose eyes were harmed by the toxic fumes from the fatal gas blowout, are seen in Chongqing.. [Filephoto/Xinhua]

The six convicted are Wu Bin, Wang Jiandong, Song Tao, Wu Hua, Xiang Yiming and Xiao Xiansu and the ruling was handed down by the No.2 Intermediate People's Court of Chongqing Municipality.

Wu Bin, 40, the first of the line of defendants, was given an imprisonment of six years, while Wang Jiandong and Song Tao were sentenced to five years' jail terms each, and Wu Hua was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, Xiang Yiming was given an imprisonment of three years, while Xiao Xiansu was sentenced to a jail term of three years but with a reprieve of four years, said court sources.

On the night of December 23, 2003, a gas well blew up and spewed a poisonous mix of natural gas and hydrogen sulfide over the mountainous Kaixian County, southwest China's Chongqing, as villagers were sleeping, killing 243 people and injuring more than 4,000 others.

The court heard that the grave gas well blowout was caused by a series of violations of rules for drilling operations and dereliction of duty.

Wu Bin, leader of the drilling team, was directly responsible for the accident for failing to report to his superiors as he knew the gas well would explode with absence of a back-pressure valve, or taking necessary measures to correct the danger. He allowed his workers not to do their job properly, which directly caused the fatal gas blast.

Wang Jiandong, born in January 1970, graduated from college in Gansu Province, northwest China. He worked as an engineer and managed an on-the-spot working team at the gas well. He was responsible for demanding workers to remove the back-pressure valve though he knew the significance of the device for the well safety. Song Tao, a well regulator, was held responsible for failing to stop Wang's erroneous decision.

Born in February 1963, Wu Hua, the former deputy manager and chief engineer of the Eastern Sichuan Drilling Company, plus the director of the company's emergency center, was also held responsible for failing to assign special personnel to monitor the blowout or to make a resolute decision and give clear orders as to whether the well should be fired to prevent the accident from going out of control.

Xiang Yiming, the driller, was found guilty of failing to follow rules of drilling operation, while Xiao Xiansu, female, the well recorder, was held responsible for failing to report work violations to superiors.

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