Industrial accidents happen every day across China -- the world's factory. But the ways responsible parties and authorities handle them are all different. Take the Nov. 20 explosion at a PVC factory in Shanxi province.

Four died and 39 were injured at the coal-based PVC plant, owned by Yushe Chemical Co. Ltd., a major revenue contributor to coal-rich Yushe County.

The day after the incident, local government held an emergency meeting, ordered a county-wide safety check of all industrial facilities, and made Nov. 20 an annual "safety theme day".

On Nov. 23, the plant manager was suspended to receive further investigation. Yushe Chemical's corporate safety officer was dismissed. Two other company executives as well as a county safety official were given demerits.

Authorities also conducted continuous monitoring of the air and water quality near the explosion site. A special team was formed to handle the compensation for victim families and nearby residents.

The speed and transparency of the measures taken by Yushe Chemical and the local government have become pretty standard in China, but they are still lacking in many smaller, privately owned factories in the plastics industry, as we've seen and reported in the past.

Yushe Chemical is owned by the local government, employs nearly 3,000 and reported sales of 1.39 billion yuan (US$209 million) in the first ten months of 2010.

Commodity analysts at China Futures Co. Ltd. said they don't expect the incident to cause major impact on the PVC resin market. Yushe Chemical claims annual capacity of 400,000 metric tons. China's monthly PVC output reached 953,000 tons in October, most of which through the coal-derived acetylene process.