August 5 On [date], the Office of the State Council Safety Committee and the Ministry of Emergency Management convened a nationwide video conference on work safety. The meeting earnestly implemented the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping on work safety, deeply learned from the lessons of the devastating Beirut explosion in Lebanon, and deployed a special inspection and rectification campaign across the country to ensure the safe storage of hazardous chemicals. The meeting also called for a thorough “look-back” on the implementation of corrective measures taken following major accidents such as the Tianjin Port “8·12” incident. Furthermore, it urged that lessons learned be applied more broadly, with rigorous enforcement of safety prevention responsibilities and measures in all other industries and sectors, firmly curbing serious and especially grave accidents and ensuring a stable situation in work safety. Huang Ming, Deputy Director of the State Council Safety Committee and Party Secretary of the Ministry of Emergency Management, presided over the meeting and delivered a speech. Sun Huashan, Qiong Se, and other ministry leaders attended the meeting.

The meeting pointed out that China is a major chemical industry country, with a large number of ports, terminals, warehouses, storage yards, as well as vehicles and ships transporting hazardous chemicals—each posing increasing safety risks. The devastating explosion in Beirut, Lebanon, has once again sounded an alarm for us. All regions, departments, and units must deeply recognize that particularly serious accidents and various types of explosions severely undermine the public’s sense of security. They must also fully understand that in the new era, the people’s aspirations for a better life and their growing expectations for safety are on the rise. Therefore, we must always put the principle of “life first, safety paramount” at the heart of all our work and throughout the entire process of safe production. We must properly balance epidemic prevention and control, resumption of work and production, and safe production efforts. We must strictly implement local jurisdictional management responsibilities, departmental “three musts” regulatory responsibilities, and enterprise principal responsibilities. We must firmly grasp the critical task of curbing particularly serious accidents—the “key link”—effectively prevent and resolve major safety risks, and steadfastly uphold the safety bottom line.

The meeting emphasized that a nationwide special inspection and rectification campaign focusing on ports, terminals, logistics warehouses, chemical industrial parks, and other such facilities should be launched immediately to ensure the safe storage of hazardous chemicals. The emergency management authorities must urge relevant production and business enterprises to implement measures such as cooling, ventilation, and keeping away from ignition sources in the storage环节. It is strictly prohibited to store hazardous chemicals beyond the permitted quantities or varieties, or to mix substances that are incompatible with each other. All associated equipment and facilities—including cooling sprinklers, monitoring and alarm systems, and fire-fighting systems—must be kept in good working order and fully effective. The transportation authorities and customs offices at all levels should organize comprehensive inspections of all ports, warehouses (storage yards), and terminals handling hazardous chemicals, impose legal penalties for violations such as inadequate safety conditions, over-storage, and improper mixing of hazardous materials, and order immediate corrective actions within specified timeframes. The departments of industry and information technology, public security, and market regulation, according to their respective responsibilities, shall organize investigations into illegal production, storage, and use of civilian explosives such as ammonium nitrate, and ensure the implementation of licensing and approval procedures for sales and purchases, as well as the registration of transaction flow information. The ecological environment authorities shall carry out thorough safety inspections of hazardous wastes and effectively enforce safety prevention measures. All regions must conduct quantitative risk assessments of storage sites for explosive hazardous materials such as ammonium nitrate, dispatch experienced experts to provide on-site guidance and support, and conduct both overt and covert inspections to ensure that inspections are truly thorough and targeted. We must insist on addressing issues at the source, strictly enforcing joint approval procedures and stringent oversight requirements for hazardous chemical production and storage projects, and scientifically and rationally planning the layout of hazardous chemical production and storage enterprises.

The meeting pointed out that every accident serves as a painful lesson, paid for with lives and blood. Yet, the corrective measures proposed in investigation reports on some serious and particularly grave accidents often end up gathering dust on shelves. We must conduct thorough “look-back” reviews of the implementation of corrective measures for such accidents, and make great efforts to ensure their effective execution. We need to assess the implementation status of each corrective measure outlined in the accident investigation reports, item by item, and absolutely avoid vague or perfunctory approaches. The assessment results must be reported to higher-level safety committees and publicly released, subjecting them to public oversight and practical testing. This will ensure genuine accountability for production safety and the safety of people’s lives. We must strengthen accountability and enforce strict consequences: those failing to implement corrective measures, leaving major issues unresolved, or delaying the rectification of significant risks and hidden dangers must be referred to disciplinary inspection and supervision authorities for investigation and accountability. Through these assessments, we should not only focus on addressing the specific problems identified in the accident investigation reports but also tackle long-standing, persistent “hard-to-solve” issues. In doing so, we can truly ensure that the entire nation is alerted and mobilized to carry out comprehensive rectifications.

The meeting emphasized that August each year is a period when particularly serious and major accidents tend to occur relatively frequently. In conjunction with the three-year special campaign for nationwide safety production, we must draw lessons from one incident to prevent similar incidents in other areas, and step up safety precautions in key sectors such as coal mines, non-coal mines, fire protection, road traffic, and construction. We should prioritize addressing the most prominent issues, weakest links, and greatest risk factors—handling urgent matters with the utmost urgency. It is essential to improve and refine systems for risk assessment and analysis, hierarchical reporting, and rectification implementation. In particular, we must treat major risk factors and hazards as if they were actual accidents, thoroughly identifying significant risks, eliminating major hazards, and preventing major accidents.

The Office of the State Council’s Work Safety Committee has issued a notice to launch a special inspection and rectification campaign nationwide aimed at ensuring the safe storage of hazardous chemicals. Earlier, the Ministry of Emergency Management had already dispatched multiple supervision and inspection teams to key regions across the country to conduct both overt and covert inspections. These teams carried out targeted inspections and supervisions on more than 7,600 hazardous chemical enterprises and over 22,000 major hazard sources. On July 31, the Ministry of Emergency Management and the Office of the State Council’s Work Safety Committee held a special video conference to make further arrangements for enhancing safety management and rectification efforts in chemical industrial parks and hazardous chemical enterprises. (Author: Shao Weiwei; Photography: Hu Guangwei)