From Sohu:

Shandong Binzhou villagers siphon off natural gas, carrying “bombs” home

February 20th, at an oil/gas well near the west end of Huanghe 12th street in Binzhou, Shandong Province, there were many villagers using large plastic bags to carry natural gas, a nerve-racking sight for many. The workers at the oil field stated that this indeed created many latent dangers, but their warning were to no avail.

On the morning of the 20th, when reporters first arrived, the oil extraction machinery was operating normally, a gas canister and large gas furnace were beside the machine with no people standing guard. At 10 am, a middle aged woman brought a large plastic bag to the machine. The woman skillfully opened the valve to the gas and connected it to the bag she was carrying, the plastic bag quickly rose and grew to be a 6 meter long, 1 meter wide balloon. After about 4 minutes the bag was full.

According to reports, there are more than one oil well in Binzhou; many other villages near oil/gas wells also had cases of villages self-filling gas. “Some villages directly connect the oil pipe to the village and divide it among the household. Once there was a power outage to the pipeline, uninformed villages continue to use gas to burn stoves, by the time the pipeline came back on, the rush of gas ignited the fires causing an explosion,” recalled an oil worker at Shengli Oil Field in Binzhou.

Comments on Sohu:

阿拉伯男爵:

I’m from around there, the people there are too poor and they won’t let them connect lines from the oil field so they have to use this method to carry home gas. It takes up a lot of space at home and can only burn for 5 days, an old lady was blown off her feet by wind carrying this! Common people’s lives are so hard!

搜狐新闻客户端网友:

What is in there? A Massive Wave? [Note: Julang or “massive wave” is a Chinese intercontinental-ballistic missile (ICBM)]

路边上校:

Can’t blame the villagers! Why not let the villagers spend a little money and directly connect the pipeline to the villages for them to use directly, wouldn’t this be better? And safer too! Without any waste!

搜狐手机网友:

As long as there are oil wells, the neighboring people all do this, not just at this place.

搜狐手机网友:

Saving money is important, but life is even more important!

搜狐手机网友:

The fearless revolutionary spirit.

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