Taiwan explosions probe focuses on petrochem firm

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_TAIWAN_GAS_EXPLOSIONS?SITE=VANOV&SECTION=BUSINESS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Taiwan explosions probe focuses on petrochem firm
By GLADYS TSAI and RALPH JENNINGS
Associated Press
Aug 2, 8:45 AM EDT

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Authorities in Taiwan's second-biggest city zeroed in on a petrochemical firm Saturday in their investigation into a series of gas pipeline explosions that killed 28 people and injured 286, as anger rose over the handling of the disaster.

The government is seeking to pinpoint the cause of five blasts that tore through streets in the city of Kaohsiung starting at around midnight Thursday, flinging cars into the air and blasting cement rubble at passers-by, many of whom were out late at a nearby night market.

The city's environmental officials said LCY Chemical Corp., a Taiwanese petrochemical firm, had failed to notify authorities of problems with a pipeline in the area despite being aware of irregularities in deliveries going through that pipeline that night. This caused delays in the government's response to the disaster, said the officials, who are facing growing public anger.

"If we were informed earlier by LCY, we could have evacuated everyone," Chen Chin-der, director of the Environmental Protection Bureau in Kaohsiung, an industrial port city of 2.8 million people, said at a televised news conference Saturday.