2005 Jilin chemical plant explosions

The CNPC, which owns the company in charge of the factory, Jilin Petrochemical Corporation, asked senior officials to investigate the cause of the incidents.

[4] The explosions were not thought to be related to terrorism, and the company told a press conference that they had occurred as a result of a chemical blockage that had gone unfixed.

[citation needed] The municipal government asked hotels and restaurants in the city to provide rooms for the evacuated people.

After traversing the eastern half of Heilongjiang including the city of Jiamusi, the slick converged into the Amur River at the mouth of the Songhua on the border between China and Russia.

It passed by the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Russia, then entered the Russian region of Khabarovsk Krai in the Russian Far East, passing through the cities of Khabarovsk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur before exiting into the Strait of Tartary, itself a bridge between the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan portions of the Pacific Ocean.

Several hydropower stations in the upper reach of Songhua River began to increase their discharge flow.

Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang, is one of China's biggest cities with nearly ten million urban residents.

The news of the shutoff caused panic buying of water, beverages, and foodstuffs in the city's supermarkets, while train tickets and flights out of the area were soon sold out.

Later on the same day, the city government issued another announcement, this time explicitly mentioning the Jilin explosions as the reason for the shutoff.

In readiness, a communications hotline had been set up between Chinese and Russian agencies, and China offered water testing and purifying materials, including 1,000 tons of activated carbon to Russia.

The media has focused mostly on Harbin, with almost no information on the slick's effect on cities and counties in Jilin province.

[10] In response, Vice Governor Jiao Zhengzhong of Jilin province and Deputy General Manager Zeng Yukang of CNPC have visited Harbin and expressed their apologies to the city.