Gasoline leak strands 8,000 in SW China

GUIYANG/KUNMING - About 8,000 people were stranded at Kunming Railway station as of 5 pm after a gasoline leak near the Kunming-Shanghai railway line was found on Wednesday, the Kunming Railway Bureau said.

About 2,000 tonnes of gasoline have leaked from a broken pipe after an accident at a construction site late Tuesday night in southwest China's Guizhou Province, rescuers said Wednesday.

The leak started at about 12:40 am Wednesday after a construction tower collapsed late on Tuesday at a high-speed railway construction site in Pingba County of Anshun City, rescuers said.

Trains from Kunming station traveling to Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Jinan, Chongqing and Guilin via the Kunming-Shanghai line were either delayed or canceled due to the leak.

The pipe belongs to a branch of Sinopec, the country's largest oil refiner.

Local government authorities have cordoned off the leak site and laid pipelines to pump the oil leakage.

Environmental personnel have started environmental monitoring at the site, where petrol fumes were pungent.

The current primary task is to focus on pumping the leakage and screening the leak risks to avoid further accidents, said Li Shangkuan, director with the Guizhou Provincial Administration of Work Safety.

Three people have received medical treatment, and more than 110 are working to repair the broken pipe and clear the site, which is about 30 meters from the Shanghai-Kunming railway and is near residential houses.

The local government has taken emergency measures to stop the leak and evacuate residents from within a two-kilometer radius. Rail authorities have suspended train services from Anshun to the provincial capital of Guiyang.

A provincial joint investigation team has been formed to look into the accident, and safety inspections are being carried out across the province.