Law experts call for harsher punishments for criminals convicted of improper management of dangerous materials following the Tianjin warehouse blasts which claimed 135 lives as of Tuesday.
Deputies of the National People's Congress (NPC) made the appeal during a review of an amendment to the Criminal Law at the bimonthly NPC Standing Committee meeting on Tuesday.
News portal thepaper.cn quoted NPC deputy Shen Chunyao as saying that current punishment for this type of crime was not enough to satisfy families of the victims and the whole society.
According to the Criminal Law, anyone who violates regulations on the production, storage, shipment and use of toxic, explosive, flammable and radioactive materials resulting in serious consequences faces prison or detention terms of up to three years, and in more severe conditions faces up to seven years in prison.
The law has not changed since being amended in 1997, Shen said.
He suggested increasing the maximum penalty from seven to 10 years, or reclassifying the penalty system to create three levels based on the severity of the crime.
Gao Yandong, Criminal Law professor at Zhejiang University, said the most important thing to prevent future tragedies similar to the Tianjin blasts is to strengthen the supervision of companies that store or deal with hazardous materials.
"The government should also be held more accountable for such a tragedy, specifically the departments that neglected their supervision duty and those that failed to conduct a safety assessment of the warehouse," Gao told the Global Times.
Separately, Yang Dongliang, former director of the State Administration of Work Safety, is currently under investigation for "severe violation of discipline and law." He was dismissed from his post, China's discipline watchdog announced on Wednesday.
Yang allegedly signed a policy in 2012 allowing companies with a port operations license to store hazardous chemicals without special certification, China News Service reported.
