The explosion of a house in Yanjiao, a neighborhood near Beijing, is this a "new explosive force"?

At nearly 8 o'clock in the morning on Wednesday (March 13), Beijing time, a house explosion occurred in Yanjiao Town, Hebei Province, adjacent to Beijing. As of press time, 7 people have been killed and 27 injured. But this is just one of many similar accidents that have occurred in China in recent months. Why are there so many safety accidents in China recently?

An explosion occurred in Sanhe City, Langfang, Hebei Province, killing at least 2 and injuring 26

CCTV's live broadcast of the explosion in Yanjiao was blocked, and the China Journalists Association approved it to control public opinion

A fire broke out in a residential building in Nanjing, killing 59 people and injuring 59 people. The safety hazards of China's electric vehicles have attracted renewed attention

Yanjiao, as a town under the jurisdiction of Sanhe City, Hebei Province, seems to be a place that is not easy to attract attention. When searching on the Internet, the related topic that can often be seen is how Yanjiao can integrate with Beijing’s Tongzhou to achieve high-quality development.

But after the explosion on Wednesday, Chinese state media rarely reported the incident at large, and even CCTV reporters went to the scene to report.

It was initially determined to be a gas leak.

Soon after the incident, various live videos circulated on the Internet. One of the videos reviewed and confirmed by Reuters shows that when the explosion occurred, the local area was busy with traffic. The shock wave and dust of the explosion rushed onto the street. Passing drivers stopped suddenly and got out of their cars to avoid; some pedestrians ran away from the smoke and dust. came out, but was still knocked to the ground by the exploding building debris.

The Chinese media "Daily Economic News" mentioned in the latest report released in the early morning of Thursday (March 14) that five hours after the incident, the town was still filled with a burning smell.

The location where the accident occurred is located on a traffic thoroughfare, and commuter buses going to Beijing will pass by here. Based on information from multiple media, the accident occurred at a restaurant in an old community of Xiaozhang Gezhuang Village in Yanjiao. The four-story building where it was located has collapsed, and the nearby buildings affected have also tilted. The cause of the accident was initially determined to be a gas leak, but it has not been finally confirmed. After the incident, the Sanhe City Emergency Management Bureau blocked nearby roads and the gas supply to surrounding communities was also cut off.

As of press time, there was no further information on the accident investigation. But there are various speculations about the circumstances of the accident on the Internet. Some people question whether this was an explosion caused by a gas leak, because it is more powerful than a general gas leak explosion; some also doubt the official number of deaths, because it involves the determination of the level of responsibility for the accident.

Cai Shenkun, one of the former "Top Ten Most Influential Bloggers" of Phoenix.com, told this station that if the explosion was caused by a gas leak, it would reveal the loopholes in China's housing construction. "China has been building high-rise buildings for so many years. During the construction of the building, there are many hidden dangers in pipeline gas, including problems with the pipeline itself, as well as issues with corporate standards, because different companies have different standards and operating procedures, which can also cause problems, as well as cutting corners."

Cai Shenkun is particularly touched by the problem of cutting corners. He said, "Many of these pipes are made of cheap, low-quality products. This is a very common phenomenon."

According to Jimu News, a subsidiary of the local official media Hubei Daily, just two days before the incident on March 11, the Sanhe Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau of Yanjiao Town carried out inspections on a number of local liquefied gas filling units.

But Cai Shenkun doesn't trust the government's surveillance very much. Cai Shenkun, who has been running a company worth hundreds of millions in China for many years, told this station that the safety hazards existing in these houses are caused by lax supervision in the past. “In the past, supervision was lax, which caused real estate developers to reduce costs. We will reduce investment and will not use the best things, including many fire-fighting facilities. We will try to fool them if we can, but in the end these will cause problems."

Accident-prone

The bombing in Yanjiao aroused strong online public attention to similar recent incidents in China.

Rough statistics show that since the beginning of 2024, four fires or explosions reported by Chinese state media have occurred in January alone, including January 19 at Yingcai School in Yanshanpu Village, Dushu Town, Fangcheng County, Nanyang City, Henan Province A fire in a dormitory killed 13 people; on January 20, a dust explosion occurred in the production workshop of Shenrong Metal Technology Co., Ltd., Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, killing 8 people; on January 20, an abandoned factory building in Juancheng County, Heze City, Shandong Province The explosion caused a fire, killing 7 people; on January 25, a fire broke out in an underground store in Xinyu, Jiangxi, killing 39 people. Most of the dead were students from secondary education and training institutions.

In February, an explosion occurred in the workshop of Asia Pacific Light Alloy (Nantong) Technology Co., Ltd. in Haian Economic and Technological Development Zone, Nantong, Jiangsu, killing three people. Just last week (March 7), an explosion occurred in the Zhangjiagang Municipal Government Building in Jiangsu Province. On the same day, another fire broke out at the Jiangsu Provincial Public Security Department in Nanjing.

Regarding the recent frequent accidents in China, Cai Shenkun, who is currently in Washington State, does not think it is very special. "It is actually normal for China to have so many safety accidents. In the past, people just didn't pay much attention to these aspects. Maybe they just paid attention to bigger ones." Safety accidents, such as major safety accidents in coal mines or gas explosions." He believes that given China's lax quality control of housing or projects over the past many years, similar incidents may occur in the future.

Hu Liren, a former Chinese private entrepreneur who has been doing business in Shanghai for many years, has also noticed the recent frequent accidents, but he believes that the actual occurrence of similar safety accidents may be far more than the cases reported by the official media. Explosions or fires have occurred in many places. They are often suppressed by local governments, preventing the outside world from knowing the complete truth.

Hu Liren mentioned the explosion that occurred in the equipment workshop of the Shanghai Petrochemical and Chemical Industry Department in Jinshan, Shanghai in June 2022. Although the accident was ultimately determined to have caused 1 death and 1 serious injury, the number of casualties he learned from Jinshan was much higher than this. number. This news cannot be confirmed by third-party sources.

Last week there was an explosion at a government building in Zhangjiagang City, Jiangsu Province. Although there were rumors online that the perpetrator of the explosion appeared online, there was no Chinese media report on the case.

Hu Liren, who is currently in Florida, the United States, believes that the recent frequent accidents in China are not a normal phenomenon, and it does not rule out that some people go to extremes and seek revenge on society. "Now the entire society is full of complaints, and many people are actually bankrupt. He has no other There are channels to vent, but he has no right to speak, and it is impossible for him to litigate with an organization, so many people are going to extremes."

New explosive power

It is worth mentioning that during the reporting process of the Yanjiao explosion, reporters from China CCTV also went deep into the scene and reported live through video connections. However, from the video of the on-site report, the outside world can see that when the CCTV reporter was describing the situation at the scene, he was blocked by many unidentified men in black. The CCTV camera lens was also blocked. The host in the CCTV live broadcast room There was also an embarrassed look on the person's face.

The China Journalists Association issued a public statement on Wednesday night saying that reporters should conduct interviews on major public safety incidents and not cause chaos.

Cai Shenkun teased this, saying, "During the two sessions, they shouted about new quality productivity and what kind of new quality combat effectiveness. I just summarized it and applied the current new vocabulary. This is called new quality explosive power; for CCTV female reporters to maintain stability, this It’s called the new quality and stability maintenance force.”