Mainland China battling fires and contamination at chemical blast site

The Tianhe-1A, however, managed to continue running smoothly, following the blast, Xinhua said on Thursday.

State media reports said the fire was brought under control Thursday but not extinguished.

“I’m wearing this mask because I saw some police wearing them, but I also saw some without masks”.

State news agency Xinhua reported that rescue workers were “racing against the clock to save the injured and contain fires”, after the massive blasts.

Investigators in China are monitoring the air quality in Tianjin following the two explosions yesterday that killed at least 50 people. One missing firefighter was pulled out alive from the debris on Friday morning. The cause of the blast is still being investigated.

The Tianhe-1A was ranked as the world’s fastest supercomputer back in 2010, but it has since been eclipsed by other machines, including one built in China.

No one warned them of the risk that there could be risky chemicals that would react violently with water, said the report, which was later taken down from the website.

Ford, Nissan and Toyota also said they were checking their cars parked around the port. Hyundai and Kia had a total of 4000 cars near the blast site but did not have specific details on the extent of damage, the companies said.

Xinhua quoted Gao Huaiyou, deputy director at Tianjin’s work safety watchdog, as saying that major discrepancies in the accounts of company management and customs, as well as damage to the company’s office, contributed to the difficulty in identifying the chemicals.

Tianjin Port is the largest port in northern China and the main maritime gateway to the capital, Beijing.

But the Beijing News reported earlier that according to manufacturers, at least 700 tonnes of sodium cyanide were at the site, along with other substances, and the poisonous chemical had been detected in sewage samples in the area.

Fires from the blasts were still burning Friday and chemical and nuclear material specialists from China’s military were on site, to clear hazardous materials that are believed to have been responsible for the blasts.

The head of the local Fire Department, Zhou Tian, said his men would have known not to spray water on stores of calcium carbide.

An environmental expert told an official press conference Friday that toxic gas indicators were now within normal limits and the air “should be safe for residents to breathe”.