Explosion rips through chemical plant in eastern China; no casualties reported yet

A dozen fire engines and 150 firefighters extinguished the blaze about 1:50 am Sunday at the Runxing Chemical Technology Company in the Shandong province city of Zibo, the Xinhua news agency said.

The explosion came after two huge blasts ripped through a warehouse storing unsafe chemicals in Tianjin on August 12, killing at least 121 people.

“Someone is blowing these chemical factories up, we don’t know who, but we still have not found any clues in the toxic rubble”, Xiang Xing Ping, a Chinese official told local media outlets on Saturday.

The massive cleanup operation at the core area of the explosions is progressing, said Wang Hongjiang, vice mayor of the north China municipality.

But a safety assessment report conducted about Ruihai before last week’s explosions contradicted those rules, Xinhua reported. The death toll from a warehouse blast in Tianjin has risen to 123, including 70 firefighters and seven policemen, authorities said at a press conference on Sunday.

A chemical plant exploded in China’s Shandong province on Saturday evening, only ten days after chemicals stored at a warehouse in Tianjin blew up and killed 114 people. Zibo is a serious storage website for gasoline oil and chemical compounds within the area.

Photos published Thursday by Chinese state media showing thousands of the dead fish seen washing up six kilometres from the Tianjin blast site quickly went viral, according to the Wall Street Journal. It releases poisonous gases when ignited by flames.

The Public Security Ministry ordered police to increase roadside checks and tighten the approval process for transportation permits, the official Xinhua news agency said.