Fireworks truck crashes expose safety hazards

Fireworks vendors and transporters are routinely disregarding laws concerning the safe transportation of fireworks, putting lives in jeopardy after a spate of accidents on Beijing's highways.

On Wednesday, a truck loaded with 1,200 boxes of fireworks traveling from Jiangxi Province to Liaoning Province overturned at Maju Bridge on the Beijing to Shanghai Highway at 10 am, the Legal Mirror reported.

This followed another accident involving a minibus laden with fireworks which caught fire at Beichen Bridge on the North Fourth Ring Road Tuesday, while on the same day on the east side of the same bridge, another truck carrying fireworks also caught fire. No injuries were reported in the three accidents.

Zhang Qi, a vendor who is preparing to sell fireworks in Haidian district for the upcoming Spring Festival, told the Global Times that the government does have regulations about transporting fireworks.

"Vendors must buy fireworks from local manufacturers instead of from anywhere outside of Beijing [for safety reasons]," he said.

"But they will be below market price if you can get them from elsewhere," he claimed.

Zhang said a firework sold for 10 yuan ($1.6) in Beijing would be half the price if it were made outside of the city due to lower manufacturing costs.

A media officer for Panda Firework Company in Chaoyang district, who would not give his name, said that there are only three legal companies in Beijing that vendors in the city are able to buy from.

"There are risks to transporting fireworks over long distances, but it is legal if you have the proper licenses," he said, adding that he could not comment on the safety risks in Beijing.

But even though fireworks should be produced locally, the officer admitted most fireworks sold by companies in Beijing are produced elsewhere.

The Beijing Municipal Administration of Work Safety could not be reached Thursday.