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Greenpeace said exposure or skin contact with the hazardous materials will put firefighters and rescue workers at risk.

An environmental expert says evacuation of the area around Wednesdays mammoth warehouse blast in the Chinese port city of Tianjin is the “main priority, ” and warned of the explosions long term consequences.

The death toll included at least 21 firefighters, the highest for a single rescue mission since the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, Xinhua reported.

The survivor, who was pulled out 32 hours after the twin explosions shattered the economic hub, was identified as a 19-year-old firefighter named Zhou Ti who belongs to the Binhai New Area brigade of Tianjin’s fire department.

The death toll in Wednesday’s inferno and blasts that devastated industrial and residential zones has climbed to 85, including 21 firefighters – making the disaster the deadliest for Chinese firefighters in more than six decades.

The rugged firefighters have emerged as the new soldiers to fight deadly industrial fires in China in the last two decades as the country ramped up manufacturing.

The firefighters initially sent to the scene were “investigating and testing” the area and their reinforcements were arriving when the first blast hit “all of a sudden”, Zhou Tian, head of the Tianjin firefighting bureau, told a briefing Friday.

Fires broke out at the blast site in the Chinese port city at 11:40 a.m. local time Saturday, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Major explosions in the Chinese city of Tianjin on Wednesday evening has grabbed the world’s attention for the past couple of days as news of its cause, casualties, and possible government negligence continues to unfold. Majority were caught off guard by the second one,...

He also described regaining consciousness and seeing what he described as fire rain falling from the sky.

Renault said that almost 1500 of its imported cars stored in a warehouse at the port had been burned while Toyota said the blasts broke windows at its vehicle assembly, logistics, and research buildings, which are jointly run with China’s FAW Group.

The death toll could have been higher had the explosions occurred during the day, when more people would have been working in the area.

Xinhua reported that firefighters were called to the warehouse at 10:50 p.m., and the explosion occurred around 40 minutes later. There also are worries over fumes released by chemical fires.

Officials said Zhou had no recollection of when he reached the scene, and it was not clear whether he was among the first responders to the site who were caught up in the giant blasts, or if he arrived some time later.

Tianjin authorities suspended firefighting on Thursday so chemical experts could survey for hazardous materials and the local Environmental Protection Bureau said it had identified toluene and chloroform in the air.