Twenty-two people seriously poisoned by Tuesday's chlorine leak in Jiangsu Province will recover, hospital authorities said on Saturday.
Another 13 were discharged while 37 others are about to leave the hospital, according to an emergency meeting at on Saturday morning.
"The badly injured will be able to leave the hospital in three weeks and there will be no complications or negative long-term effects on their ability to work," said Xu Xinrong, director of the room for serious patients in People's Hospital of Jiangsu Province.
The accident occurred at 6:50pm on Tuesday, when a tanker truck carrying 35 tons of chlorine blew out a tire and crashed into a cargo truck on the Huai'an section of the Beijing-Shanghai expressway. The accident killed 28 people and led to the hospitalization of 350 others.
Rescuers dug a pond at roadside shortly after the accident to counteract the chlorine with caustic soda. Since then the area has been under 24-hour surveillance, officials said. The bulk of clean-up work ended on Friday morning.
According to an official in charge of plant protection, more than 1,300 hectares of nearby crops were damaged. But he also denied a rumor that vegetation would not be able to grow on affected areas for years.