China: Death toll mounts after massive explosion

This could be the highest death toll in a rescue mission for firefighters since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, official media reported.

Officials have only confirmed that calcium carbide, potassium nitrate and sodium nitrate were at the warehouse.

Zhou Ti, 19, was found at 7.05 am on Friday morning at the scene of the blasts, city government officials said at a news briefing.

The government has ordered more stringent checks on risky chemicals nationwide.

Greenpeace, citing information from Tianjin Tanggu Environmental Monitoring Station, said the company also stored calcium carbide in addition to the chemicals reported.

Jin Xin, a professor with Beijing University of Chemical Technology, said if water was used to put out fire caused by sodium cyanide, a highly toxic material stored at the warehouse, it would create excessive levels of hydrogen cyanide, which is highly flammable. More than 1,020 firefighters and 140 fire engines have been deployed to douse the fire, said Zhou Tian, head of Tianjin’s fire department at a press conference on Friday.

“We have gone to each and every hospital by ourselves and not found them”, said Wang Baoxia, whose elder brother is missing.

But the big questions remain unanswered, including the big one: why were warehouses containing such unsafe chemicals built so close to people’s homes? However, Beijing News reported that 36 fire fighters are still missing. At least 21 firefighters died in the blasts and at least 10 are still missing. The explosion was so big it was visible from space.*. Foreign companies have started assessing damage to facilities in and around the port, a gateway to northeast China, which accounts for 40% of China’s imported cars.

“They were caught off guard, so the casualties are grave”, he said.

Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp said more than 50 of its employees were injured. But the contamination was no longer detected later Saturday and there was no obvious impact on anybody in the area, the report said.

The warehouse was owned by Tianjin Dongjiang Port Rui Hai global Logistics Co.

The operators of the Tianjin site have been accused of “clearly violating” safety rules. Ltd., which was founded in 2011 and is a storage and distribution center of containers of risky goods at the Tianjin Port.

Industrial accidents are not uncommon in China following three decades of breakneck economic growth. This is not the first time a blast of this magnitude happens in China, a year ago, 75 people lost their lives when a room filled with metal dust went off. Shockwaves from the explosions were felt by residents in apartment blocks miles kilometers away in the city of 15 million people. They shattered windows in buildings and cars and knocked down walls in a 2-km radius.