The penetration rate of urban gas use in the country has reached 97.87%, and the aging of pipelines has become the biggest challenge to gas safety

Reporter | Zhang Qiannan

Edit | Zhai Ruimin

On January 20, 2022, the Ministry of Emergency Management held a regular press conference to release the top ten typical cases of emergency rescue and production safety accidents in 2021, including the "6.13" major gas explosion accident in the Yanhu Community Bazaar in Shiyan, Hubei Province.

Su Jie, director of the Department of Safety Coordination of the Ministry of Emergency Management, introduced at the press conference that in recent years, with the rapid development of the mainland's urbanization process, the scale of urban gas use in the country has grown rapidly, the gas population has exceeded 667 million people in the country, and the penetration rate of urban gas use in the country has reached 97.87%, which can be said to be inseparable from the production and life of the people. While gas use brings convenience to people, the risk of gas safety is becoming increasingly prominent.

At about 6:42 on June 13, 2021, a gas explosion accident occurred at the Yanhu Community Bazaar in Zhangwan District, Shiyan City, Hubei Province, causing 26 deaths, 138 injuries, including 37 serious injuries, and direct economic losses of about 53.9541 million yuan. The cause of the accident was that the natural gas medium pressure steel pipe was severely corroded and ruptured, and the leaked natural gas was gathered in the enclosed space of the river channel below the accident-related building in the bazaar, and the Sparks discharged from the exhaust fume pipe of the catering business exploded.

The Ministry of Emergency Management said that the main lessons of this accident include: First, the investigation and rectification of potential safety hazards is not in-depth and thorough. During the renovation of the gas pipeline involved, the pipeline was illegally passed under the building involved in the accident in the bazaar, forming a major accident hidden danger. Shiyan Dongfeng Zhongxin Combustion Company has not carried out patrols in the relatively dangerous areas under the river below the bazaar for 5 consecutive years. The competent department of gas in Shiyan City has carried out many special rectifications, but no major hidden dangers have been found and eliminated.

Second, the ability to respond to emergencies is insufficient. From the mass alarm to the explosion for up to 1 hour, Shiyan Dongfeng Zhongclam Company and its on-site inspection office sudden personnel failed to evacuate the masses in time, did not set up a vigilance according to the plan, prohibited the fire source, evacuated the crowd, did not immediately control the gas valves at both ends of the pipeline upstream and downstream, maintained the positive pressure in the pipeline, and put forward the wrong suggestions for ending disposal and evacuating the scene to the relevant rescue personnel without eliminating the risk of combustion and explosion.

Third, the main responsibility of the enterprise involved is seriously lacking. Shiyan Dongfeng Combustion Company turned a blind eye to systematic hidden dangers such as 130 gas leakage alarms and pipeline pressure sensors being in a faulty state for a long time; appointed personnel who have not obtained the qualification assessment certificate to be in charge of safe production work; appointed personnel who have never participated in business training, do not understand the responsibilities of line inspection, and will not use gas leak detectors as the leaders of the line inspection team.

Fourth, safety law enforcement inspections were formal, and the gas management department inspected the law enforcement of gas enterprises 121 times, but did not impose an administrative penalty on illegal acts.

Su Jie introduced that in addition to the "6.13" major gas explosion accident in Shiyan, Hubei Province, some major accidents occurred in Dalian on September 10 and Shenyang on October 21 last year. Other places have also been a series of Achan explosions, leaks and other accidents.

"The occurrence of these accidents reflects that gas safety accidents have entered a stage of frequent and frequent occurrences. At present, gas has entered a period of large-scale use in the mainland, and most of the pipelines used are built 20 years ago, the pipelines are aging and old, in addition, including the scale of new pipelines is also expanding, which is the biggest challenge we face. Su Jie said that according to preliminary statistics, there are now nearly 100,000 kilometers of gas pipelines in the country that have experienced different degrees of aging, coupled with the fact that the construction standards at that time were relatively low, the daily maintenance, maintenance, and update were not timely, and the safety risks were very large.

In addition, the gas accident has exposed that there is still a big gap in the implementation of the main responsibility of gas safety in some regions, departments and enterprises and institutions, especially after the gas business license in some places is delegated to the grass-roots level, the corresponding regulatory forces and the level of supervision and law enforcement capabilities have not been adapted to it, and the law enforcement is "loose and soft", and it is not strict and cannot be implemented in different degrees, so it leads to the concentrated exposure of gas safety problems.

Su Jie introduced that the Ministry of Emergency Response, together with the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and other departments, has studied and formulated the "National Urban Gas Safety Investigation and Rectification Work Plan" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), which has been issued in the name of the State Council Safety Committee.

The "Plan" will focus on rectifying six major risks and safety hazards, including major safety risks and hidden dangers in the gas business links; major risks and hidden dangers focusing on public places such as catering; rectification of safety risks and major hidden dangers in some old residential areas; investigation of major safety hazards in the construction of gas projects; rectification of safety hazards in gas pipeline facilities; and rectification of gas stoves, including hoses, joints, Alarms do not meet the current requirements, or the quality does not meet the requirements, easy to produce leakage, aging, etc. for rectification.

Shen Zhanli, spokesman of the Ministry of Emergency Management and director of the Department of Information and Publicity, also briefed on the national natural disaster and safety production situation in 2021 at the press conference.

According to statistics, in 2021, various natural disasters across the country caused a total of 107 million people to be affected, 867 people died and disappeared due to disasters, 162,000 houses collapsed, and direct economic losses of 334.02 billion yuan, down 28%, 10.4%, 18.6% and 5.5% respectively compared with the average of the past five years.

In 2021, the national safety production situation continued to be stable and good, and the overall situation showed the characteristics of "two declines, one basically flat, and one zero occurrence", that is, the total number of accidents continued to decline, and the number of large accidents decreased year-on-year; major accidents were basically flat; no particularly major accidents occurred. A total of 34,600 production safety accidents and 26,300 deaths occurred in the whole year, down 9% and 4% respectively compared with 2020.