Gas poisoning victims remain
critical
GUO NEI, China Daily staff
Two victims of the mustard-gas leak in Qiqihar, Northeast
China's Heilong-jiang Province, were in critical condition in
a local hospital last night.
Another 33 people were also in hospital receiving
treatment.
Poison victims Li Guizhen, 31, and Wang Cheng, 22, were in
a serious condition, according to sources with the People's
Liberation Army Hospital No 203.
Li, a waste collector from Central China's Henan Province,
and Wang from Qiqihar were poisoned on Monday last week while
they were transporting barrels containing the poisonous gas
from the Beijiang Gardens residential area to a local
recycling facility.
A doctor at the hospital, who refused to be named, told
China Daily that, by 3 pm yesterday, 31 men and four women had
been admitted to the hospital but declined to say how many of
them were in a serious condition.
The hospital has appealed to Chinese pharmaceutical plants
to help tide it over a shortage of medicines to counter
infection and drugs for improving immunity.
The hospital has also set up 28 extra beds to accommodate
the victims, according to Xinhua News Agency.
Experts have confirmed that the five metal barrels of
mustard gas found in Qiqihar were chemical weapons left by
Japanese troops during their invasion of China between 1937
and 1945.
The barrels were discovered at a construction site and one
of them was broken by workers at the site, causing an oil-like
substance to leak out into the soil.
Yesterday, visiting Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing told his
Japanese counterpart Yoriko Kawaguchi that the accident in
Qiqihar has caused serious casualties to the Chinese.
He urged the Japanese side to attach high importance to the
accident and shoulder up the responsibility.
Kawaguchi promised that her government will earnestly
co-operate with the Chinese side to properly handle the
aftermath of the accident.
Local anti-chemical warfare soldiers have disinfected all
11 polluted sites and sealed all the contaminated soil and
transported it to a warehouse along with the barrels.
The city lifted a quarantine on the 11 polluted sites
yesterday morning.
