The death toll in Tuesday's tanker truck crash and chlorine gas leak in neighboring Jiangsu Province has climbed to 28 and may rise further, a government official said yesterday.
Also yesterday, authorities filed charges against two employees of the tank truck company, accusing them of delaying an evacuation that would eventually involve 10,000 residents.
Some 350 people remained under hospital care yesterday, 17 of them suffering serious gas poisoning, said Lu Changsu, vice mayor in charge of public security in Huai'an City, where the accident occurred.
He said the death toll may rise because three of the victims are in critical condition.
The accident occurred when a tank truck carrying liquefied chlorine lost control after a tire blew out and it rammed into a cargo truck on the Beijing-Shanghai Expressway. Both vehicles overturned, and the cargo truck driver was killed on the spot.
The driver and a colleague in the tanker truck fled the scene. They were identified as Kang Zhaoyong and Wang Gang, employees of the Jining Kedi Hazardous Chemicals Transportation Center in east China's Shandong Province.
Kang, who police said was driving, reported the accident to expressway authorities but did not reveal the tanker was carrying hazardous chemicals. Kang and Wang fled to Nanjing by taxi, police said, but surrendered on Wednesday afternoon. Though the tanker was supposed to carry no more than 15 tons, Kang reportedly said it was actually carrying 29.44 tons of chlorine.
Area farmers have complained about damage to their crops and say that some of farmland will be infertile for a year or two.
At the accident site, emergency crews have dug a pond along the roadside, and are neutralizin the remaining chlorine.