A catastrophic incident unfolded on Saturday as a massive fire broke out at a chemical plant in Guixi, a city in the eastern province of Jiangxi, China. The blaze, triggered by an explosion, sent billows of thick black smoke into the sky, creating a scene of chaos and prompting an immediate response from emergency services. .
According to CCTV News, the incident took place on Saturday morning at a facility owned by a silicon production company, Jiangxi Qiantai New Material Co, in the city of Guixi in Jiangxi province.
Local emergency services are said to have scrambled to put out the fire, finally extinguishing it at about 2:30 pm local time. The plant’s personnel have been evacuated, while the authorities have begun looking into what caused the incident.
Videos circulating on social media appeared to show a large plume of smoke dozens of meters high, with fire ravaging at least several buildings of the facility.
The fire in Jiangxi comes after an explosion in early May at a Chinese petrochemical plant owned by the Zhonghua Group in the northern part of the country claimed the lives of at least nine people.
