China Strengthens Port Safety in Wake of Oil Spill

(July 23) -- China is strengthening safety measures at its ports after an explosion caused an oil spill at the port city of Dalian, in the northeast of the country.

Ports that handle oil and chemical shipments will have to check their facilities every two years, and the government will dispatch occasional patrols to ensure that they are obeying safety regulations, The New York Times reported.

The July 16 oil spill has fouled around 140 square miles of ocean, the Times reported, and is blamed for the death of a cleanup worker who drowned in the crude.

The spill occurred when workers injected a chemical into an oil pipeline after a tanker had finished unloading, Agence-France Presse said. The chemical was meant to remove sulfur from the oil. Instead, there was a large explosion and 1,500 tons of oil spilled into the Yellow Sea.

China is one of the world's top importers of oil. According to the International Energy Agency, it consumed the equivalent of 2.25 billion tons of crude last year.

Dalian is China's second-largest port in terms of oil imports. State media reported that oil activities in the port have resumed.

Environmental groups have criticized the government's response to the spill, saying authorities aren't doing enough to warn people about its hazards. "Locals and visitors unaware of the extent of the oil spill were playing in the water with their kids, risking exposure to petroleum," Greenpeace said in a statement, according to The Associated Press.

Greenpeace also warned that cleanup workers are poorly prepared for their task, with most of them being fishermen without proper equipment.

Still, the overall impact of the China oil spill may be small compared with the one in the Gulf of Mexico.

The spill in the Yellow Sea is estimated at about 400,000 gallons. The spill from the ruptured Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico is estimated at as much as 184 million gallons.