Top safety regulator under investigation after Tianjin blast

The high insurance penetration rate in this area could make the blasts one of the most costly catastrophe claims for the Chinese insurance sector in the past few years, the report said. It is one of the government agencies responsible for regulating companies that work with dangerous materials.

Deere & Co said on Monday it expects production to resume later this week at its John Deere facilities in the Chinese port of Tianjin after huge explosions in the area killed more than 100 people and displaced thousands from their homes last week.

At least 114 people killed and 70 missing after blasts in Tianjin“, “footerText”: “Brought To You By”, “authorLineLabel”: “By”, “showBylineLabel”: “null, “showDatelineLabel”: “null, “showPublicationDateLabel”: “null, “authorSnippetLabel”: “By”, “showNativeInfoTooltipText”: “true, “showNativeAdSynopsis”: “true, “showByline”: “true, “showDateline”: “true, “showPublicationDate”: “true, “hasAuthor”: “true, “displayMultipleAuthors”: “false, “showAuthor”: “true, “showAuthorSnippet”: “true, “showSubHeadline”: “false }’>[Native Advertisement].

The government has confirmed there was about 700 tons of the deadly chemical sodium cyanide in the warehouse that blew up. Reportedly around 700 tonnes were stored at the warehouse which was blown off during the blasts.

On Sunday, Shi, the military commander, offered more details about what was at the site.

“With regards to the safety levels, in total there are 29 cyanide inspection sites”.

“If the blasts have ripped the barrels open, we neutralize it with hydrogen peroxide or other even better methods”.

Experts have expressed concern that rain could spread some of the vast quantities of hazardous material at the site or set off chemical reactions sparking further explosions.

The fireball that tore through a warehouse storing hazardous chemicals last Wednesday night left behind a devastated landscape littered with incinerated cars, crumpled shipping containers and shattered windows on buildings several kilometres away hit by shockwaves from the blasts. The contamination Saturday afternoon, at 4 percent and 50 percent above the safety level, was no longer detectable later Saturday, Bao said.

The delay was “very strange”, said Willy Wo-lap Lam, a political science professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, given Tianjin’s proximity to Beijing. But the cause of the fire has yet to be determined.

Meanwhile, mainland media revealed 10 controllers and executives of Ruihai international Logistics, the operator of the warehouse where the blasts occurred, had been in police detention since last Thursday.

Local monitoring centers reported a normal air quality reading in the city, and the Tianjin deputy mayor in charge of work safety said at a press conference yesterday that sodium cyanide within a three-kilometer radius of the core blast site would be neutralized by yesterday evening. The majority of those vehicles were insured, but it is not yet known exactly how much coverage was in place for this circumstance and for those products.