12 firefighters, 38 others dead in China blasts

The National natural disaster Bureau said the first blast was the equivalent of 3 tons of TNT, and the second 21 tons.

The blast was so big fireballs and explosions could be seen from space and such was the magnitude of the explosion it registered as seismic activity.

Being a port city, Tianjin is a mix of warehousing, office blocks, residential areas, and travel links to support the very busy industrial area. The blasts shattered windows in buildings and cars and knocked down walls in a two-kilometre radius around the site.

The death toll from huge warehouse explosions in the Chinese port city of Tianjin has increased to 50 by Thursday evening, including 17 firemen, Xinhua news agency reported.

Xinhua said 1,000 firefighters and more than 140 fire engines were struggling to contain a blaze in a warehouse that held “dangerous goods”. Company executives have been taken into custody, state media said.

The official Xinhua News agency said one person was rescued from the neighborhood about 7 a.m. on Friday.

An injured driver in his truck after the explosion.

Tianjin, with a population of about 15 million, is about 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Beijing on the Bohai Sea and is one of the country’s major ports.

Police in Tianjin said an initial blast took place late Wednesday night in shipping containers at a warehouse for hazardous materials owned by a logistics company.

“Because of the explosions in the Tianjin port area, no chemical and crude (oil) tankers are going in or out at the moment”, said the source.

According to witnesses a giant fireball up to 100 metres high tore through the night sky as they rushed from their homes fearing an quake.

Within blast distance of the explosion, residents were shuffling across pavements coated in broken glass, marvelling at how all the windows in apartment buildings and cars hundreds of metres from the explosion were smashed.

“Firefighters across the world face similar risks and challenges and the thoughts of all firefighters here in the UK will be with our colleagues in China and their families”, said general secretary Matt Wrack.

Xi said in a statement carried by official media that those responsible should be “severely handled”.

Tianjin is China’s fourth largest city.

A construction worker at a site about three-quarters of a mile from the blasts told the Shanghai-based publication the Paper that the explosions were so powerful, they collapsed a prefabricated dormitory housing 300 of his colleagues but only two people were hospitalized.

The cause of the blasts was unknown but industrial accidents are not uncommon in China following three decades of breakneck economic growth.