A group of children in eastern China has appealed to Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) to remove an illegal fireworks factory near their school that they fear is endangering their lives, US-based Radio Free Asia (RFA) said yesterday.
The appeal was read out on one of the radio station's call-in shows by an 11-year-old student from the Honglin Elementary School in the Jiangyan city area of Jiangsu province.
"There is a fireworks factory behind our school ... It has been in illegal production for seven or eight years now," RFA quoted pupil Huang Minghao as saying.
"Every day they let off several dozen fireworks for testing. This makes us all very frightened. If the factory were to explode, we would all be blown to pieces," he said.
In 2001 about 42 children were killed in China's eastern Jiangxi province in a fireworks explosion at a village school that parents said had forced students to make firecrackers.
Officials admitted the school had made students make firecrackers but blamed the explosion on a mentally ill villager.
Villagers in Jiangsu told RFA they wanted the factory closed before a similar incident occurred in their village. The plant is close to a residential area and just 20m to 30m from the school.
Villagers said the factory was allowed to operate because its owner was well-connected.
The radio station said the factory's owner, a Communist Party member and a delegate to China's legislature, admitted not having a license but said she was providing a service by employing people.
China is the world's largest producer of fireworks with factories regularly exploding due to lax safety standards.
RSS