Death toll from explosions at China’s Tianjin port rises to 85

Many of them have been shifted to makeshift camps in nearby localities amid fears over the spread of toxic chemicals in the area. A total of 721 were injured, of whom 25 are still in critical condition. Residents living a few kilometers away from the blast site reported feeling strong shock waves, which many mistook for an natural disaster.

It is now known the blast on Wednesday killed at least 85 people, including at least 21 firefighters – the biggest loss of live of emergency personnel since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

Officials said specialists from sodium cyanide producers were being sent to the site.

She was among the 6,000 people displaced by the fire and explosions that rocked the port Wednesday night, sending fireballs many stories high.

Rescuers Friday pulled out a firefighter who was trapped for 32 hours after responding to two huge explosions in Tianjin, state media said, as authorities moved forward gingerly in dealing with a fire still smoldering amid potentially unsafe chemicals.

Cargo is stored in a warehouse for no more than 40 days before being transferred elsewhere, he said, adding that the blast site had been redesigned to store hazardous chemicals.

Chemical safety experts said calcium carbide reacts with water to create acetylene, a highly explosive gas, and an explosion could be caused if the firefighters had sprayed the calcium carbide with water.

They have also been publicly reticent about suspicions that firefighters may have sparked the explosions by spraying water on volatile chemicals.

In an interview with the Shanghai-based publication The Paper, a fire official at the Ministry of Public Safety, Lei Jinde, is quoted as confirming that the first wave of firefighters used water to cool down areas on fire.

He said: “We knew there was calcium carbide inside but we didn’t know whether it had already exploded”. The warehouse stored “dangerous and chemical goods”, which slowed down firefighters’ efforts.

In this photo taken Thursday, August 13, 2015, a man walks through the site of an explosion at a warehouse in northeastern China’s Tianjin municipality.

Industrial accidents are not uncommon in China following three decades of fast growth.

Thousands of people have been left homeless by the blasts.

A Deere & Co. crisis response team continues to assess the injuries to John Deere employees as well as damage to the company’s Tianjin, China, manufacturing complex after a massive chemical explosion tore through the Chinese port city a day earlier.

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. But it said toxic fumes within the city are “within national standards”.