Chinese Local Media Silent on Deadly Qingdao Explosion  · Global Voices
Abby Liu

An oil pipeline explosion in Qingdao, one of China’s eastern cities, killed at least 52 people and injured more than 100 on November 22, 2013. The pipeline belongs to the state-owned Sinopec Corp, one of China’s largest oil companies. After the incident, the chairman of Sinopec Fu Chengyu made a public apology on China's state broadcaster CCTV.
Local media in Qingdao, however, took little note of the explosion, running no coverage whatsoever of the disaster in the next day’s editions. With photos of the explosion widely circulating on Chinese social media, a chorus of critical Chinese netizens rose in the face of the state-controlled media’s silence.
“Baigu Lunjin” posted Qingdao’s Morning newspaper on Weibo and criticized [zh]:
The tragic oil pipeline explosion killed at least 52 people. Screenshot from youku
要有多么大的毅力才能够面对47条鲜活的生命，几十户家庭的悲剧——选择性失声！作为媒体人，你们对得起流血的青岛吗？对得起那些无辜的亡灵吗？
How much perseverance does it take to choose to be silent when faced with 47 lives, a tragic loss for dozens of families! As a media person, are you worthy of the bloodshed, Qingdao? Worthy of those innocent lives?
Instead of reporting about the truth behind the incident, Qingdao’s official Weibo account became a platform to flatter the “top officials”. On November 24, it published [zh]:
今天下午，习近平总书记在青大附属医院黄岛分院，亲切会见参与“11·22”中石化输油管线泄漏引发爆燃事故伤员救治的医护人员，对参与救治的全体医护人员致以衷心感谢和亲切问候。总书记对他们发扬救死扶伤的崇高职业精神给予充分肯定，叮嘱他们劳逸结合，科学调度，再接再厉，夺取最后胜利。
This afternoon, General Secretary Xi Jinping cordially met with hospital staff treating those injured in the Sinopec explosion. Jinping expressed sincere thanks and kind regards to the doctors and nurses and praised their efforts.
Netizens ridiculed the report, with one particular user, “CE sir”, writing [zh]:
一起青岛爆燃事件，死伤这么多人，竟被搞成了喜事！！
Such a tragic incident, many people died and injured, but the report sounds like it’s a great cause!
Sources outside of Qingdao are responding to the tragedy, with Beijing News raising questions [zh] about the explosion:
1 漏油为何轻易进入市政网络？ 2、输油管道为何紧邻居民区？ 3、#漏油至爆燃，地方政府为何7小时未疏散民众，避免悲剧发生？# 4、漏油发生后，中石化为何未第一时间报告海事部门？ 5、中石化10月“安全大检查”，为何未能消除输油管线隐患？
1. How did this oil spill happen so easily in the municipal network? 2. Why was the pipeline so close to a residential area? 3. During the seven hours from oil spill to explosion, why wasn't the local government able to evacuate people to potentially save lives? 4. After the oil spill, why didn't Sinopec report the incident to the maritime sector in time? 5. Sinopec had conducted a “safety inspection” a month before in October, so why weren't they able to prevent this tragedy?
Online personality “Pretendtobein NY” wrote [zh]:
这两天许多媒体忙着把灾难事故写成正面报道，让我想起动车事故后第七天，媒体收到禁令不许报道。当天新京报的头条是“七日雨未绝，一天两预警”，前一句暗示头七，后一句暗讽禁令；东方体育日报更是借国足直指“封口封博封不住哀思”。限制会一直存在，但真正有风骨的媒体总能找到办法亮出勇气和良知。
Many in the media are busy these days writing positive reports about disasters, which reminds me of the Wenzhou train collision. Seven days after the incident, all media reporting on it were banned. Beijing News’ headline on that day was “Seven days of constant rainy days, one day of two warnings”. The first “seven” hints at seven days of dead people, the latter hints at the warnings of a media ban. Oriental Sports Daily wrote: “You can seal the mouth, but you can’t seal the grief.” Censorship will always exist, but the media's real strength of character can always find a way to show its courage and conscience.
Writer Tianyou suggested [zh]:
建议在青岛爆燃遇难者头七的时候，将此日定为全国哀悼日，全国下半旗致哀。不仅是要向遇难者致哀，同时提醒全国的央企要注意生产安全。
I recommend that the flags be lowered to half-staff in a national day of mourning for those who died. Not only it is a way to mourn the victims, it is also a way to remind state enterprises to pay attention to production safety.
In response to the suggestion, many responded [zh] sarcastically:
开了此例，旗杆上半截基本就没用了。
If we start lowering the flags after this case, I guess the top part of the flagpole will be useless.