Sinopec says it warned officials of danger before Qingdao tragedy
The company says it warned officials that urbanisation was hampering repairs on the crude oil pipe network in Qingdao
China Petroleum & Chemical warned the authorities two years ago that urbanisation was hampering repair work on a crude oil pipeline in Qingdao, Shandong province. A blast last week at the pipeline killed 55 people.
The pipeline had "several safety hazards", Beijing-based Sinopec said in a September 2011 report, submitted to the Environmental Protection Bureau in Weifang, a city near Qingdao.
The report describes the 27-year-old pipeline as originally built in a sparsely populated suburb. Qingdao is now home to 7.66 million people.
The November 22 crude oil spill and blast, the deadliest since at least 2005 according to the Xinhua, highlights the challenges facing officials in balancing safety with urbanisation, as it rushes to add homes, railways and factories.
Premier Li Keqiang has championed urbanisation as a "huge engine" of future economic expansion and revive growth.
"On paper, more urbanisation is good, but it ignores the lack of government oversight and poor construction quality," said Ding Xueliang, a professor who studies mainland modernisation at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "The explosion in Qingdao is a huge lesson."
Sinopec shares fell 5.1 per cent in the two days after the accident.