A Coal Washing Plant Occupied River Channel and Dumped Coal Slime

On the morning of August 1, many streets in Taoshuwa Village, Wayaobao Street, Zichang City, Shaanxi Province, fell into a black ocean. The torrential current swept away the cars on both sides of the street and poured into a number of businessmen along the street, making this small town on the Loess Plateau once become Zeguo.

In the afternoon of the same day, the Propaganda Department of the Zichang Municipal Committee informed the reporters of the Beijing News about the causes of the accident: at about 9:50 on August 1, two slag-discarding points of a coal washery in Wayaobao Street, Zichang City, formed a water storage pond due to the continuous heavy rainfall in recent days, after the water storage pond collapsed, the water storage entered a downstream fish pond, causing overflow of the fish pond and water flow. It poured into the coal washery and then into the local Xiuyan River along the ditch.

New Beijing News reporter consulted the map and found that a tributary of Xiuyan River runs through Zichang City from west to east, and its south bank is Taoshuwa Village. Abandoned residue is located in the upper reaches of the river. On the morning of August 1, black water mixed with coal ash flowed downstream into Taoshuwa village, causing floods and entering the river near Taoshuwa Bridge on Xiuyan River. The Propaganda Department of the Zichang Municipal Committee said that some vehicles were damaged and no casualties were caused. After the accident, the Beijing News reporters found that the so-called "slag-discarding point" is actually a "slime dam" formed by illegal dumping of a large amount of slime in the river by a local coal washery all the year round. In addition, the accident has brought heavy property losses to many local residents, and even endangered life safety. A video widely circulated on the Internet shows a woman who has become a "mud man" inhaling a large amount of pollutants in her lungs and injuring herself in many places. She entered the intensive care unit and her son died of an electric shock while cleaning up the silted sewage. Over 8 a.m. on August 1, Zhang Jianguo, deputy director of Taoshuwa Third Brick Factory, who has worked for more than 10 hours, is ready to return home from work. At this time, the director rushed over and shouted, the upstream owner of the farmhouse told him, "The dam will be off immediately, waterproof as soon as possible." The third brick factory is located in the east of Taoshuwa ditch, the village river course, and it is the junction of the villagers'residential area and the river course.

Zhang Jianguo immediately asked the workers to drive two excavators to the entrance of the factory area to block the flow of water with the excavators. He himself rushed to the account room to save the books, which recorded the workload of all the workers, "washed away by water and the workers can not account for it." About 10 minutes after, the mountain torrents came. "The water is very big, it's black water," said Zhang Jianguo, who said the two excavators had little effect. The water flooded into the factory yard and factory building in a short time and rose to more than one meter high. Zhang Jianguo could only run to a brick pile in the factory building with his books. The worker who was soaking in water told him that his leg was numb. Zhang Jianguo discovered that in the panic, the power switch of the factory building had forgotten to turn off, and it might be leaking electricity. He rushed the workers to the battery car.

"We washed away all our bricks, and the poles were washed down. The water was too big..." Recalling the scene at that time, Zhang Jianguo said three "too big". After the brick factory was swept by black water, along Taoshuwa ditch and village road, houses and shops on both sides of downstream streets poured in.

In many live videos circulated on the network, floods mixed with coal slurry poured into the streets of Zichang City, and roads, cars and poles were stained with mud. A video cameraman stood on the Taoshuwagou Bridge and filmed it downward. In the past, grey-black turbulence rushed through the clear river. Passers-by on the other side greeted him to leave quickly because the flood had begun to overflow the bridge. In the next video taken from the river bank, black water has poured down the edge of Taoshuwagou Bridge, forming a dark "waterfall". When the flood came, Li Qiang (pseudonym) was working in an auto repair shop. "The first reaction was to pull down the curtain doors in the shop and save himself." Li Qiang said that the floods quickly damaged the curtain doors and the water in the house rose to more than a foot high. Xiao/p>Xue, owner of a shop along the street, told the Beijing News that she and her husband were in the shop at that time, when the water was deepest, it spread over the calf joints, and the water smelled like "burning". Miss Xue said that after the flood reached Taoshuwa Bridge, it began to converge into the Xiuyan River, and gradually receded after about half an hour. Before the accident, there was a heavy rain in Zichang City. A reporter from the Beijing News inquired about the weather information and found that Zichang Meteorological Observatory issued a rainstorm orange warning signal at 1:45 on July 29. It is expected that the rainfall in Wayaobao Street and other areas will exceed 50mm in three hours, and the rainfall may continue.

A local taxi driver told the Beijing News that before the incident, the son-in-chief had rained for three consecutive days. "It rained the most on the evening of July 29, and then it rained in showers for two days." He recalled that on the night of July 29, rainwater once overflowed the logo in the center of the wheel hub and "almost washed my car away."

Accident kills and injures

In a widely circulated video, an old woman sat on the roadside covered with mud, as if she had become a "clay man". In another view, someone pointed to a car on the Taoshuwagou Bridge and asked the old woman loudly, "Is there anyone else in the car?"

This clay man, Wang Xiuzhi (alias), is a supermarket owner in Taoshuwa village in his 60s. As the mountain torrent descended the street, she was in the cool at the entrance of her supermarket and was swept into the rapids before she could dodge. After being washed out hundreds of meters, she grabbed a pillar at the end of Taoshuwa Bridge and was eventually rescued.