"The latent period for aniline poisoning can be as long as 10 to 20 years," said one relative.

Aniline's History

Before the 2008 event, few among Jilin Chemical Fibre's 10,000 workers knew that Connell was a major producer of aniline, whose production requires large amounts of poisonous chemicals and can generate various harmful gases including monoxide. Making aniline is a simple process but, if not managed properly, can lead to harmful emissions, leaks and even explosions.

Connell officials say the plant's production techniques are safe. Professor Guo Jinghai of Jilin Institute of Chemical Technology -- the main contributor to an official environmental impact evaluation report on Connell -- said the factory uses patented techniques from Germany that remove all potential risk of explosion.

But the city of Jilin is no stranger to aniline disasters. In November 2005, eight people died in an aniline workshop explosion at the CNPC Jilin Petrochemical Co.'s Bi-benzene Plant 101, which was then China's largest aniline producer. Sixty people were injured in the blast and toxic spill polluted the Songhua River.

Six months later, another aniline-related explosion at a CNPC petrochemical subsidiary in Lanzhou, in northwest China's Gansu Province, killed four.

After these accidents, CNPC halted its aniline production facilities nationwide, forcing many domestic buyers to turn to more expensive imports. Later, some equipment and personnel from Plant 101 was transferred to Connell.

Company Connections

Connell President Song Zhiping once told the local newspaper Jiangcheng Wanbao that she launched the aniline project because Jilin Petrochemical Co. no longer wanted it.

"But a profit of some 200 million or 300 million yuan is quite attractive to medium-sized and small enterprises," said Song, 52, who is also a municipal and national delegate to the National People's Congress.

According to Connell's Web site, the new aniline project is expected to create at least 1,000 jobs and generate 700 million yuan in annual tax revenues.

Connell was established as an aniline producer in 2006 with an investment of HK$ 120 million from the Hong Kong Starr International Group Co. In July 2007, Starr transferred 51 percent of its Connell shares to Jintai Investment (Holdings) Co. Ltd., which is wholly owned by the Jilin City Commission of State Assets Supervision and Management (CSASM) since its establishment in 2004.

In the same breath, Jintai Investment transferred to Starr about 5 percent of the 98 percent equity share in Jilin Chemical Fibre that it had controlled since 2004.

Official registration records show Leng Jie, director of the Jilin City Reform and Development Commission, is also president of Jintai Investment and serves as Connell's legal representative. Top executives at Connell and Jilin Chemical Fibre also hold leading positions at Jintai.

Environmental Oversight

Connell's aniline project was registered in 2006, the same year that China's Interim Regulation on Public Participation in Environmental Impact Evaluations took effect. According to Guo, notices were posted both around selected construction sites and on the Web site of Jilin Institute of Chemical Technology, which was in charge of the evaluation. In addition, 60 questionnaires were distributed and a public hearing was held in January 2007.

Nevertheless, Caijing could not locate the online notice or other evaluation materials available for public review on relevant Web sites.

At the hearing, a dozen or so representatives from Connell, the institute and the "local community" participated. But it seems no one represented Jilin Chemical Fibre's residential compound, where some 10,000 people (workers and families) live Less than 2 kilometers southeast of the Connell plant.

As it turned out, the institute's first evaluation report on the environmental risks of Connell's aniline project was rejected because it "failed to clarify wastewater disposal and its location, some basic data was contradictory, and risk evaluations did not follow the right procedures."

Yu Muqing, a researcher at the Changchun Institute of Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said he and a number of other experts in charge of the review proposed at that time that the wastewater, after being treated at Connell, should be channeled to the city's sewage treatment plant for further processing. The evaluation report was approved by Jilin Province Environmental Protection Bureau after the second review.

But some Jilin Chemical Fibre workers say they doubt Connell has operated its own sewage treatment facilities. Some suspect its wastewater was discharged directly into the neighbor factory's sewage pipes. However,  Guo said Connell's aniline project couldn't have been approved without a sewage treatment system.

The newspaper Nanfang Zhoumo, or Southern Weekend, quoted some workers as saying Connell proposed moving the residential compound of Jilin Chemical Fibre from the economic zone to a location inside the city limits -- a suggestion that allegedly silenced some voices of opposition against the project at that time.

But Connell's Wang denied the company made that promise. "As a company, we have nothing to do with residents," he said. "It would be up to the government to make a relocation decision."