Families of explosion victims seared by pain

The season of family reunions during Spring Festival hadn't been able to bring together six siblings from Changchun, Jilin province.

Little did they expect such a gathering would occur more than 1,600 kilometers from their hometown, as a result of tragedy.

A phone call from Jiangsu province following a deadly blast rocked a chemical plant in Xiangshui county on Thursday brought them bad news: Their 41-year-old uncle had been near the explosion site.

"A man on the phone told us my uncle was seriously injured, and briefed us about the location," said the Changchun resident who gave his surname as Wang.

Shocked and worried, Wang decided to keep the news to himself instead of telling his uncle's siblings in Changchun, especially his 96-year-old grandmother.

"Who dares tell her? She's aged, and a normal person wouldn't do that," Wang said.

But he shared the news with his brothers and sisters-in-law who work in three different cities - Changchun, Beijing and Shenzhen.

"It was a sleepless night. We kept calling our uncle from 7 pm on Thursday, but nobody answered. At 7 am the next day, his phone was powered off," he said.

Six of Wang's siblings decided to travel to Xiangshui to look for their uncle. The first arrived there at 1 pm on Friday.

Wang said he rode two trains and two taxis before arriving in Xiangshui. He was too tired to remember how long his journey took, or when he arrived.

Family members methodically visited every hospital in Xiangshui, ward-by-ward. They even tried some hospitals in the provincial capital, Nanjing, but they failed to find any information about their uncle.

"It was grueling. We even tried several times to enter the explosion site but failed," Wang said, adding that local authorities collected their DNA on Sunday and asked them to wait for further information.

Early on Monday morning, he went to the Chenjiagang police station, where local authorities had set up a reception area for people coming to look for missing family members. He found that his uncle had been confirmed dead.

Wang said his uncle arrived near the explosion site to work on a construction project about 10 days before the blast. The 52-year-old has a daughter with a disorder that can damage joints, organs and blood, as well as a minor son.

"He is the backbone of the family," said Wang, who struggled to hold back his tears.

Two women, however, wept openly after hearing bad news about their next of kin at the reception area on Monday morning. They sobbed in each other's arms.

Ten other people waited silently - most haggard with red eyes - for any news of their relatives.

A local resident surnamed Zhang said four of his family members worked at the exploded chemical plant, and three of them were killed. The other one had left the company for physical checks that day, so he was lucky to escape death.

"Someone told me that my nephew, who died in the blast, had run out of the factory after seeing the fire. But he returned, probably wanting to save others, but he never came out," Zhang said.