Firemen added to China blast damage?

At a news conference Saturday, officials said those who died in Wednesday’s blasts included at least 21 firefighters.

Zhou Ti, a 19-year-old firefighter, was pulled from the zone at about dawn Friday and taken to a hospital, where he was treated for face, chest and foot injuries, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Photos and video have emerged showing incredible devastation from crumpled shipping containers thrown about and piled up and row upon row of incinerated cars.

The blasts on Wednesday night were preceded by a fire at the warehouse, and questions have also been raised about whether the hundreds of firefighters were aware of the hazards, and whether they were trained to combat complex chemical fires.

At least 700 tonnes of sodium cyanide were stored at the blast site according to an initial report by Beijing News published on Thursday.

Outside hospitals, anxious relatives continued to wait for news about their loved ones, some of whom are still missing.

Sodium cyanide, a highly toxic chemical that can rapidly kill humans exposed to it, was one of the materials, Gao said.

More than 200 nuclear and biochemical experts from the Chinese military and a team from the worldwide Atomic Energy Agency’s Beijing environmental emergency response centre have been assessing the area.

In a report, Xinhua said the cabinet, the State Council, had ordered “governments at all levels to reinforce the safety management on unsafe chemicals and explosives”.

Fire department official Lei Jinde said: “We knew there was calcium carbide inside but we didn’t know whether it had already exploded”. Stuart Prescott, a senior lecturer in chemical engineering at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said water was recommended to extinguish the two nitrates but a chemical powder was needed for calcium carbide.

In his instruction, President Xi said the cause of the fire must be determined, family members of the victims should be taken good care of and public order should be maintained.

More than 6,000 local people have been forced to leave their homes and are now staying in temporary shelters.

Officials say they have blocked off sewage pipelines that run from the port industrial area where the warehouse was located into the sea in an effort to prevent polluted water flowing out. “I don’t usually wear a mask but I don’t quite trust what the government says”, Massachusetts Wiehan said from behind her mask as she walked with her 6-month-old daughter.

“When the blasts occurred, several firefighters were working to put out the fire as backup forces just arrived”, said Tianjin fire chief Zhou Tian. “We can, however, confirm that no deaths have been reported”, a Toyota spokeswoman said.

TIANJIN, August 15 (Xinhua) – A man in his fifties was rescued from the Tianjin blasts site on Saturday afternoon.

Authorities have not said what caused the explosions, saying only that they originated at the warehouse owned by Ruihai worldwide Logistics.

How many lives did the explosions claim? At one point, it was shared by nine countries: Italy, Germany, France, Russia, UK, Australia, Japan and Belgium. Jethro Mullen reported and wrote from Hong Kong.