UpdateChina quake death toll expected to rise

14 May 2008 13:24  [Source: ICIS news]

(Releads and updates throughout)

By Cheang Chee Yew

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--The death toll of nearly 15,000 as a result of the massive earthquake in China was expected to rise as relief crews fanned out into the mountains of the hard-hit Sichuan province, according to news reports on Wednesday.

Almost 15,000 people have been killed southwestern China with another 25,788 still buried and a further 14,051 missing, reports said.

The death toll from the 7.9-magnitude quake which struck on Monday now stood at 14,866, said the official Xinhua news agency.

Damaged transport links were hampering relief efforts in the region and restoring them have become priority, industry officials said.

State TV showed Premier Wen Jiabao comforting survivors and overseeing relief efforts in Beichuan county. The government has dispatched nearly 100,000 relief workers and more than 900 soldiers and three helicopters have now arrived at Wenchuan county in the north of Sichuan.

PetroChina and Sinopec have each provided CNY 10m ($1.4m) in disaster relief.

The former will also supply 100,000 tonnes of refined oil to the region, while the latter said it had offered personnel and special groups to provide support. Taiwan's Formosa Group donated CNY100m and Dow Chemical has contributed CNY2m. Rohm and Haas has committed to give yuan (CNY) 500,000 ($71,531) to the Red Cross aid agency to support relief efforts for the victims.

The province's chemicals industry has been hit hard by the disaster, which has led to major production and logistics problems.

Railways and roads linking Sichuan to northwest provinces such as Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang, and southwest like Yunnan and Guizhou have collapsed, causing major transport problems, a local logistics company official said.

Rail transportation from Shanghai to Sichuan province had also been affected as the rail link passes through Xian in neigbouring Shaanxi province, he said, adding that telecommunication links with the affected areas were still down.

Most plastics processors in Sichuan were located in Mianyang and Deyang county, where buildings and roads were also damaged by the quake, although to a less extent than Wenchuan and Dujiangyan county, also north of the provincial capital Chengdu, a Chongqing-based trader said.

Two fertilizer plants - operated by synthetic ammonia producers Ying Feng Co and Chuan Xin Yun Fang - collapsed on Monday, trapping workers and leaking 80 tonnes of ammonia.

However, Migao said its potassium nitrate facility in Sichuan province escaped serious damage.

PetroChina's operations in the area, including its chemical production plants, have all been disrupted, a company spokesman said.

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) producer Sichuan Lomon has shut down its 80,000 tonne/year TiO2 plant in Mianzhu as a precautionary measure, while more than 3,000 aftershocks have forced crude benzene producers to cut production over safety concerns.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) has lifted the suspension in share trading of 32 of 45 companies affected by the earthquake, it said on Wednesday, while China chemicals stocks were up on average. 

The North American melamine market would be tightened by the production outages in China and possibly send local prices up in due course, sources said.

($1 = CNY6.99)

With additional reporting by Gabriela Wheeler, Ng Hun Wei, Chow Bee Lin, Prema Viswanathan, Helen Lee, Peh Soo Hwee, Anu Agarwal and Hong Chou Hui

By: Cheang Chee Yew
+65 6780 4359

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