Massive explosions in Chinese city kill 50, injure 700
Saibal Dasgupta
Beijing
TNN
Blasts' Effect Estimated To Be Equal To 21 Tonnes Of TNT
The death toll from Wednesday night's massive explosions in Tinjian, around 150km from here, rose to 50 with authorities fearing the numbers could rise as more than 70 of the 700-odd people injured are in critical condition.
The blasts, whose effect are estimated to be equal to 21 tonnes of TNT, tore through the industrial port city spreading panic as hazardous chemicals including sodium cyanide got released, posing serious challenges for emergency responders involved disaster relief. Fears of air and water pollution forced government to send experts and trained personnel to the site.
Casualties included at least a dozen firefighters who entered the scene filled with mushrooming toxic smoke, and falling portions of structures. The building that blew up is owned by Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics, but it isn't clear what exactly triggered the explosion.
Quick response from authorities staved off fears of secondary blasts and resultant panic, and saved lives as hundreds of people were evacuated from blast hit areas. Witnesses said the scene looked like a war zone with smashed shipping containers, hundreds of burnt cars in a huge parking lot and cracked buildings.
The government ordered a high-level investigation into the causes of the explosions.The internet seemed partially censored to disallow flow of gory details of the accidents.
A large number of volunteers turned up to donate blood at the 10 health facilities where the injured are admitted. Official state news agency , Xinhua, said that drains from Tianjin to the Bohai sea had been closed “to stem chemical leak“.
The massive force of the shock wave from the blast in the Chinese port city of Tianjin hurled Hua Hongwei a few metres, and then pinned him to the ground. The factory worker in his 20s, speaking from a hospital bed, recounts how he was lucky to survive the series of explosions that rocked his dormitory , situated about 1 km from the industrial area.
A few moments earlier, he had stepped out onto his balcony to check the scene after the first blast. He then returned inside just as the massive second explosion sent a fireball over the city. “I didn't understand what was happening,“ Hua said, recounting how he flew through the room and then was crushed to the floor.
The worker from the autos plant stumbled out of the building where a friend found him and gave him some water.He was put in a taxi to the hospital. The second explosion, equivalent to 21 tonnes of TNT, was about seven times more powerful than the first one that jolted Hua from his bed.
Hua, his head bandaged, was one of dozens of victims being treated at Tianjin's TEDA Hospital. Young volun teers distributed bottles of water to weeping relatives in the hospital's hallways. Outside the hospital, volunteers set up tents, serving bowls of steaming meat and vegetables. A long line of taxis, which called themselves the “Love team“ with red ribbons tied around their antennas, offered free rides to family members.
Like Hua, many of the victims said at first they did not realize what was happening. “I saw fire burning and then: Boom! There was an explosion. My first reaction was to run as fast as I could and get down on the ground to save my life,“ said Wu Dejun, 38, a hairstylist. “When I escaped, I had blood all over me.“ Fires were still burning in the area late on Thursday , and toxic fumes spewed from the area. Many people are still missing.
Explosions that sent huge fireballs through China's Tianjin port have disrupted the flow of cars, oil, iron ore and other items through the world's 10th largest port. The blast sent shipping containers tumbling into one another, leaving them in bent, charred piles. Rows of new cars, lined up on vast lots for distribu tion across China, were reduced to blackened carcasses.
Ships carrying oil and “hazardous products“ were barred from the port on Thursday , the Tianjin Maritime Safety Administration said on its official microblog.
Tianjin is the 10th largest port in the world by container volume, according to the World Shipping Council, moving more containers than the ports of Rotterdam, Hamburg and Los Angeles. It handles vast quantities of metal ore, coal, steel, cars and crude oil. Australian mining giant BHP Billiton said the blast had disrupted iron ore shipments and port operations, but had not damaged any iron ore at the port.``We are working with our s customers to minimize any , potential impact,“ it said in a t statement Thursday .
A spokesman for Rio Tins to said the metals and mining company had four vessels waiting to anchor at Tianjin, d none of which were affected t by the blast, and that “there is no impact“ on its oper . ations. All personnel are r safe, he added.
Thousands of charred cars lie in neat rows alongside mountains of crushed shipping containers, the smouldering frontline to explosions that paralysed one of China's most important ports and industrial zones.
The Binhai New Area in northern China, where the blasts killed scores of people, is a giant logistics hub more than twice the size of Hong Kong. It hosts auto plants, aircraft assembly lines, oil refineries and other service and production facilities, and describes itself as a “modern manufacturing and research base“ on its website.
The area is home to the world's second fastest supercomputer, which was shut down as a precaution after the massive blasts. The machine itself was intact after the ex plosion and running normally, Xinhua said, but the building housing it was damaged and it was switched off due to security concerns.
It is also a major automobile trans-shipment point where about 10,000 imported cars were destroyed, according to the Qilu Evening News, 2,748 from German manufacturer Volkswagen and more than 1,000 built by France's Renault. Europe's Airbus also said it was assessing the effect on port operations. It has an assembly line for its popular A320 aircraft in the area and said that the blast was far from the facility and caused no immediate damage. Japanese auto giant Toyota has a car plant in Binhai, but an executive with the operation said the factory was on vacation and was not affected.
Warehouse owner violated packaging standards in '13
Shanghai
REUTERS
A Chinese company that specializes in handling dangerous goods and owns the Tianjin port warehouse where two massive explosions killed dozens of people violated packaging standards during a safety inspection two years ago, the safety bureau said.
Of 4,325 containers owned by Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics that were checked, five failed the inspection because packaging was sub-standard, the Tianjin Maritime Safety Administration said. A warehouse belonging to Ruihai Logistics has been identified by the Xinhua news agency as the site of the explosions on Wednesday that were so large, they were seen by satellites.
