国内英语新闻:Irrational layouts of chemical factories blamed for life-threatening accidents in China

"The chemical factories along the river should be relocated," said Yin Jun, a well-known sewage treatment expert in China.

"The layout of a project should be decided by the environmental capacity of the location, and, no project should be established no matter how much profit it can make and how many jobs it can bring to the place if it is dangerous," Yin said.

Over-capacity has caused environmental pollution as well as the risks of chemical accidents, he said.

Environmental experts suggest that chemical projects should not be built near bodies of water, but in China the layout plans are not approved or assessed by environmental authorities.

"Most of the environmental evaluation of business projects are conducted by environmental assessment companies or study institutions, which has become a mere formality," said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs.

"Social supervision should be added apart from the government efforts," said Ma.

"Government control is not enough; some companies just paid some small amount of penalties to close the deal once their wrongdoings were disclosed," a government staff in charge of environment protection in Jilin Province said, on condition of anonymity.

Also, government supervision remains difficult to be implemented at the grass-roots level, he said.