Chinese Villagers Risk Life and Limb To Steal Gas - In Plastic Bags

POVERTY isn't funny.
So let's just pretend these people actually hail from one of Shandong Province's more well-to-do villages and aren't really so desperate for gas that they'd risk life and limb to carry it home in a 6m long plastic bag.

Kind of surreal and yet practical in a desperate sense. I'm not sure how they release the gas to capture in the bags(looks like tarps), but they can fill a bag in minutes, then transport it home. At least it's a light load.

Workers at the oil field say they try to talk the villagers out of the dangerous practice, but to no avail.
According to one commentor, officials usually turn a blind eye to villagers connecting their own lines to oil pipes in the district, but that's not the case in Binzhou.
So they take the gas instead. A bag this size, according to another commentor, would burn for five days.
We'll leave it to you to figure out exactly how you would connect a six-metre bag of gas to anything that might burn it safely.

www.news.com.au...
5 days, but how do they connect it? It sounds like there is not strict enforcement to prevent this, so that is nice I guess, considering people may freeze otherwise. They turn a blind eye on illegally connecting to the lines too. Man over here you'd be locked up in a heartbeat! Crazy times indeed...

spec

This is why I have a lot of respect for people in other countries.
People here in the US are afraid of their own shadows, or afraid it may hurt someones feelings.
Kudos to these people for doing what it takes and not let things stand in their way. I just hope they work on the safety aspect of it a little bit.

In the West, a few accidents over the years have led to a massive regulation of just about everything we do in our daily lives. So much so that it's as though we look for a sign before we touch anything, walk anywhere, or do anything.

In places like China -or certain areas of it- people just do. If someone blows themselves up, Old man Yip was an idiot.... Move on the the next.

There is something much more real about that way of being.

I dunno, the bag doesn't look right.

The sides are nice and tight, but the end looks really flimsy as though not filled at all. Just doesn't look right to me.

reply to post by Skewed

I agree with you to some degree but,

People here in the US are afraid of their own shadows, or afraid it may hurt someones feelings.

I don't think it's shadows or feelings as much as homeland security and being labeled as a terrorist for messing with an energy facility. I don't like it, nor do I think it's right, but I think this is a genuine source of fear in the US.

reply to post by boncho

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!

我家就是那的，老百姓太穷，接管道油田又不让，老百姓就那么往家运气，在家很占地方，而且只烧火省着用� �只能用5天，有个老太太运它被风刮得摔跟头！老百姓日子太难过了！

Source

reply to post by boncho

Hmm, is the article title inaccurate with the term 'stealing?' They are not allowed to hook up to the lines, but officials turn a blind eye, and that sounds like it is not exactly legal, but if they can't connect line because of distance or ability to afford/obtain lines, then maybe this is what the officials expect them to do?

spec

Originally posted by speculativeoptimist
reply to post by boncho

 

Hmm, is the article title inaccurate with the term 'stealing?' They are not allowed to hook up to the lines, but officials turn a blind eye, and that sounds like it is not exactly legal, but if they can't connect line because of distance or ability to afford/obtain lines, then maybe this is what the officials expect them to do?

spec

The lines the villagers were hooked up to weren't lines meant for that use.

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.

I think the bag transport way is safer.