In the face of aggressive government attempts to control the flow of news about the disaster, there was rampant Internet speculation about the owners of Ruihai international Logistics, the company that owns the warehouse where the blast occurred, and whether they might be connected to senior government leaders.
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China’s state media says chemical specialists from the military have arrived in Tianjin to test the air quality after the huge explosions that have killed at least 55 people, including many firefighters.
The survivor, a firefighter, had been pulled from the ruins of a warehouse, officials said.
Photos and video have emerged showing incredible devastation from crumpled shipping containers thrown about and piled up and row upon row of incinerated cars.
Greenpeace, citing a local monitoring station, said it believed other dangerous chemicals stored at the site included toluene diisocyanate and calcium carbide.
China has sent chemical experts into Tianjin to test for toxic gases after a series of deadly explosions. When asked whether they knew there was calcium carbide at the warehouse, he said yes and that firefighters would not have sprayed water on the substance.
New reports claim further explosions have shaken Tianjin at the site of Wednesday’s devastating blasts which killed more than 80 people.
“Forces from all sides are searching for the (remaining) missing firefighters”, Tianjin Fire Department head Zhou Tian said.
Tianjin is a city of about 15 million people in northeast China, about 75 miles east of Beijing.
A total of 721 others have been hospitalised, including 25 critically wounded and 33 in serious condition.
The blast was so big fireballs and explosions could be seen from space and such was the magnitude of the explosion it registered as seismic activity. “At that point no one knew, it wasn’t that the fire fighters were stupid”, Lei said, adding that it was a large warehouse and they didn’t know the exact location of the calcium carbide.
“Many types of different materials with different characteristics are mixed together and could at any time result in a chemical reaction or explosion”, Zhou said.
More than 6,000 people have taken shelter in a dozen nearby schools and three apartment compounds, said district official Zhang Ruigang, after their homes were damaged by the explosions’ shock waves.
Mining giant BHP Billiton said its port operations and shipments were disrupted but its iron ore discharging berth was not damaged.
The operators of the Tianjin site have been accused of “clearly violating” safety rules. It is a storage and distribution center for containers of dangerous goods. Phone numbers listed on its website were disconnected and an email to the company went unanswered.
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“There was no chance to escape, and that’s why the casualties were so severe”, the fire head said.
