Refugees of the natural gas blow-out return home in Kaixian county, southwest China. (Reuters)

Beijing, Dec. 29 (Reuters): Villagers from the area most severely damaged by last week’s natural gas blow-out in China began returning home today, each given an umbrella apparently to keep off toxic rain.

The death toll from Tuesday’s disaster in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing has climbed to 234 as rescue workers cleaned up a vast “death zone”, littered with bodies of people and animals, Xinhua news agency said.

The cloud of toxic gas swept across a 25 square km area, devastating villages, poisoning farms and forcing the evacuation of more than 64,000 people.

About 1,000 workers cleared away and buried almost 4,000 animals, including cattle, pigs, rabbits, ducks, chickens and dogs, killed by the gas-well burst, Xinhua said.

Zhang Hongxin, deputy head of Kaixian county in Chongqing, said vehicles and food had been prepared for evacuees by the county government and everybody had been given an umbrella.

Zhang did not say why the umbrellas were being given out but a meteorologist said rain would help clear toxins.

“The cloudy weather with some rain will help the toxic substances sink into the earth,” Xinhua quoted a meteorological expert as saying.

After returning home, “villagers should open windows and doors to ventilate their houses, and before going down into the cellar, security measures should be taken”, Xinhua said.

They should dispose of water stored before the accident although grain and vegetables were still edible, it quoted the local government as saying.

Workers poured hundreds of cubic metres of mud and cement into the 400-metre-deep (1,320 feet) well plugging the mix of natural gas and sulphurated hydrogen that caused acid burns to the eyes, skin and lungs of victims.

Chinese insurers will pay about 400 million yuan ($48.3 million) to cover the losses, the insurance regulator said today.

The insurance would include 230 million yuan in property insurance and 170 million yuan in life insurance, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission said on its website www.circ.gov.cn.

Some of the key insurers, including China Life Insurance Co Ltd and Ping An Insurance Company, had started paying, it said.

The blow-out also injured more than 10,000 people, some taken to hospital and others treated and discharged. Nearly 80 people were in a serious condition.