Hong Kong
CNN
—
Suspected debris from a Chinese rocket was seen plummeting to the ground above a village in southwest China on Saturday, leaving a trail of bright yellow smoke and sending villagers running, according to videos broadcast on Chinese social networks and sent to CNN by a local witness.
The dramatic images surfaced online shortly after a Long March 2C carrier rocket lifted off at 3 p.m. local time Saturday (3 a.m. Eastern Time) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest Sichuan Province.
The rocket sent into orbit the Space Variable Objects Monitor, a powerful satellite developed by China and France to study the most distant starbursts known as gamma-ray bursts.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has pledged to make his country a dominant space power, ramping up missions to rival other major world powers, including the United States.
Saturday’s launch was declared a “total success” by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), a state contractor that developed the Long March 2C rocket.
CNN has contacted the CASC and the State Council Information Office, which handles press inquiries from the Chinese government, including its space agency, for comment.
A video posted on Kuaishou, a Chinese short video site, appears to show a long, cylindrical-shaped piece of debris falling on a rural village and crashing next to a hillside, with yellow smoke billowing from one end.
CNN geotagged the video which will be filmed from Xianqiao village in Guizhou province, neighboring Sichuan launch site province to the southeast. The video was posted on Kuaishou from an IP address in Guizhou.
Other videos circulating on Chinese social media platforms analyzed by CNN showed the falling debris from multiple angles. In one, villagers, including children, were seen running away while looking at the orange streak in the sky, with some covering their ears because of the accident.
Some videos had been deleted by Monday afternoon.
Witnesses on social media said they heard a loud explosion after the debris crashed into the ground. An eyewitness told CNN he saw the rocket fall with his “own eyes.” “There was a pungent smell and the sound of an explosion,” they added.
In a now-deleted government notice reposted by a local villager shortly after the launch, authorities said the town of Xinba, near the village of Xianqiao, would conduct a “rocket debris recovery mission” from 2:45 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. (local hour). time Saturday.
Residents were asked to leave their homes and other buildings an hour before the launch and spread out to more open areas to observe the sky. They were warned to stay away from debris to avoid damage from “toxic gases and explosions,” according to the notice.
Residents were also “strictly prohibited” from taking photos of the debris or “posting relevant videos online,” the notice said.
No immediate injuries were reported by local authorities.
Kuaishou
A screenshot taken from a video shows debris from suspected Chinese rockets falling on the village of Xianqiao in Guizhou province, China, after a launch.
Markus Schiller, a rocket expert and associate senior research fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said the debris appeared to be the first stage of the Long March 2C rocket, which uses a liquid propellant composed of carbon tetroxide. nitrogen and asymmetric dimethylhydrazine (UDMH).
“This combination always creates these orange smoke trails. It’s extremely toxic and carcinogenic,” Schiller said. “All living beings who inhale these substances will face difficult times in the near future,” he added.
Such incidents occur frequently in China due to the location of its launch site, he explained.
“If you want to launch something into low Earth orbit, you usually launch it eastward to get extra momentum from the Earth’s rotation. But if you launch east, there will definitely still be villages in the way of the first stage boosters.
Most rockets in China are launched from the country’s three domestic launch sites: Xichang in the southwest, Jiuquan in the Gobi Desert in the northwest, and Taiyuan in the north. Built during the Cold War, these bases were deliberately located far from the coast for security reasons.
In 2016, a fourth launch site, Wenchang, opened on Hainan Island, the country’s southernmost province.
In comparison, NASA and the European Space Agency typically launch their rockets from coastal sites into the ocean, said Schiller, who is also director of ST Analytics in Munich, Germany.
Western space agencies have also largely phased out the type of highly toxic liquid propellants for their civilian space programs, which China – and Russia – still use, he added.
Multistage rockets shed debris shortly after liftoff, following trajectories that are predictable before launch.
Before each launch, China’s civil aviation authority typically issues a notice to pilots, known as a NOTAM, to warn them of “temporary danger zones” where rocket debris is likely to fall.
Debris from Chinese rockets has already hit villages. In December 2023, debris from a rocket landed in southern Hunan province, damaging two houses, state media reported. In 2002, a boy in northern China was injured when fragments from a satellite launch fell on his village in Shaanxi province.
“I hope we see something like this for a while, for many years to come,” Schiller said.
China has already been criticized by the international space community for its handling of debris from its out-of-control rocket boosters as they return to Earth.
In 2021, NASA lambasted China for its failure to “uphold responsible standards” after debris from its out-of-control Long March 5B rocket plunged into the Indian Ocean just west of the Maldives after re-entering the atmosphere.