The three injured in the explosion at a chemical plant, where chlorine gas first started leaking Thursday night, in southwestern Chongqing Municipality on Friday afternoon, were out of danger and 30,000 evacuators will live in tents to pass the night, according to the rescue headquarters.

The monitoring result from the municipal environment departmentshows the water and air in the urban areas of Chongqing is still safe with the effective disinfecting measures.

Some 150,000 residents were evacuated, including 80,000 residents from Jiangbei District, where the plant located and 68,000 from Yuzhong District and Huanglongqiao District, which face the plant on the other side of Jialing River.

"According to the settlement plan, those who live in the area more than 500 meters away from the chemical plant in Jiangbei and in Yuzhong and Huanglongqiao can will go back home tonight, but those who lives with the areas about 500 meters away from the plant will be arranged to live in tents," said an official with the headquarters, who refused to give his name.

"We are allocating tents and we promise all the evacuators willhave a warm night," said Huang Zhendong, the secretary of the municipal committee of the Communist Party of China, who added thegovernment has set up full-time work team, which is responsible toinform and help the residents to evacuate if there was any danger.

Meanwhile doctors in the No. 1 People's Hospital of Jiangbei District were working around the clock to treat the three injured.

Zhou Jinxun, the worker who is still in coma, was sent to the hospital with his two colleagues after a powerful explosion occurred at 17:57 at the Tianyuan Chemical Industry Plant, which left nine others dead or missing.

"Our family were worrying about my brother and we don't know when he will wake up," said Zhou Jincai, the young brother of ZhouJinxun.

"We will try our best to save them, but detoxification for chlorine needs time and the only seriously injured is expected to wake up tomorrow," said a doctor with the hospital, who added thatthey made a treat plan after a consultation with the doctors from other hospitals.

Xinhua reporters at the scene hear loud explosions at about 5:57 p.m. from the Tianyuan Chemical Industry Plant, where the chlorine gas first started leaking from the plant around 7 p.m. Thursday.

More than 100 armed soldiers were mobilized to keep order and withdraw citizens. Officials said more than 600 officers and soldiers are now in their combat readiness to reinforce rescue efforts any time.

Experts said violations of operating rules by workers and outdated furnaces could lead to the chlorine leak and explosions.

"The gas leak was largely due to the outdated furnaces and other equipment," said Miao Guangkui, head of a technical team at the scene, "but malpractice by workers after the accident caused the explosions.

According to the original emergency treatment program, the liquefied chlorine gas will be discharged through steel pipes under natural air pressure.

But the technical team suspected that workers at the plant usedthe machine to draw chlorine gas from the furnaces to speed up theprocess, which led to explosions following the abrupt temperature rise inside the furnaces after experts left the scene to discuss further rescue measures, Miao said.

"I was awoken by the shouting from the streets around 7 o'clockin the morning and I thought it might just be fire, but I was toldto leave my house at about 10 a.m.," said He Gongfang, a resident who lived in a residential compound by the city's pulmonary disease hospital, who took her pet cat with her in the hurry to escape.

"Now, I can go back home but I am still worried about the situation," said He.

Out side of the plant, two fire engines kept spraying waters tothe plant and medical workers were waiting to enter the plant to search for the victims as soon as the situation permits.

"The chlorine gas remains little in the air in the plant," saidWang Qinlin, head of the municipal fire control department, who added they continued using alkali lye and water to diluting the greenish-yellow fumes.

At 21:00 p.m., wearing gas-proof face-cover and air tank, Xinhua correspondents entered the Tianyuan Chemical Industry Plant.

"Glass were scattered everywhere and I have seen fragments of human bodies," said a correspondent through cellular phone who added the two furnaces stood at the core area of the explosion site.

At 21:30 p.m., an experts team entered the explosion site for investigation with the guard of police, firefighters and medical workers. They fear further explosions might continue in dangerous areas at the plant like the cooling towers as two out of eight furnaces have still not exploded. The No. 4, No. 5 and No. 6 furnaces have blown up totally while No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 furnaces are empty jars.

"We don't know if there will have new explosions because we arenot sure how much chlorine left in the furnaces," said an expert.

Investigation is still underway in Chongqing, the biggest city in southwest China.

The highly irritating, greenish-yellow fumes can be smelt near the areas about 300 meters from the plant. Inhalation of 2.5 milligrams of chlorine gas is enough to cause death and symptoms of inhalation include bronchial spasms, dropsy and respiratory difficulty.

It was the third chlorine gas leak at the plant since last year,said a worker at the plant, who declined to be named. Sources acknowledged that the municipal government planned to move the chemical plant with a force of about 2,000 workers from downtown areas to Wanzhou district, a new city zone located in the Three Gorges Reservoir area.

Source: Xinhua