Beijing (agencies)
Chinese President Xi Jinping has demanded an investigation into a flood that occurred at a work site in the southwest of the country, leaving several people dead and missing, as officials are still searching for answers more than a week after the accident. The public television station, CCTV, said that the storms caused large floods that flooded a steel factory that employs more than 200 people, noting that the death toll so far has reached 4 people, while 48 others are still missing, amid continuing relief operations. The Chinese president called on the cabinet to send a “special working group to investigate the disaster” that occurred in Jinyang County in Sichuan Province, according to the Xinhua news agency.
Xi stressed that the incident “should be the subject of an in-depth investigation and the responsible parties should be dealt with in accordance with the law.” Premier Keqiang issued instructions demanding “expeditious efforts be made to ascertain relevant facts and information,” Bloomberg News reported. Xinhua said police were facing “great uncertainty” about the number of people reported missing. The authorities arrested five people suspected of having “wrongly reported a security-related incident,” according to the same source. The Ministry of Emergency Management has sent a work team to the site to supervise the search and rescue operations.
Local authorities in the affected areas are also mobilizing rescue teams to carry out relief work.
China has experienced extreme weather in recent months, which experts say will become more frequent due to climate change.
In July, at least 78 people were killed in a raging storm and widespread floods recorded in the north of the country with the passage of Hurricane Doxuri.
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