The New York Times reports that anonymous sources have corroborated a Greenpeace report charging that the explosion at an oil storage facility in Dalian spilled far more than the 1,500 metric tons claimed by China National Petroleum Co.:
Those experts, who asked for anonymity out of fear of government retaliation, said that emergency workers deliberately opened release valves on one huge oil tank, fearing the fire could cause it to explode and crack open the tank of toxic gas. They said the workers decided to empty the tank in part because pumping the oil out would take too long, and because the explosion and fire had in any case disabled a pipeline. The released oil flowed downhill into the sea.
The emptied tank most likely was filled with 50,000 metric tons, or between 315,000 and 365,000 barrels, of crude. Greenpeace experts said that much of that could have burned off in the fire that night. But other experts said in interviews that they were skeptical that much of the released oil had burned off, because heavy crude of the sort involved in the Dalian spill is less flammable than lighter oil.
A day touring Dalian’s cleaned-up coast reveals not only strong indications of a public relations makeover, but also widespread skepticism among residents that the government was telling the whole story on the size of the spill.
“It couldn’t possibly have been 1,500 tons,” one Dalian business owner whose workers joined in the cleanup said Tuesday.
