More than 700 people were injured and thousands have been evacuated because of the risk posed by chemicals stored at the site.
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Four new fires burned Friday within a disaster zone in China’s Tianjin port where massive warehouse explosions more than a week ago killed at least 116 people and contaminated the area with toxic chemicals.
Wen Wurui, head of Tianjin’s environmental protection bureau, said that the incident has had a negative impact on the environment to a certain extent, but will not significantly influence human health, according to data collected from air and water samples in the area.
A fourth broke out in a logistics park emergency workers refer to as the “tomb of cars” due to at least 3,000 vehicles being scorched at the site following last week’s blast.
Quoting the People’s Daily, a Chinese newspaper, ABC News said the Tianjin Environmental Monitoring Center will be investigating the fish deaths and determining a cause, which will be announced as soon as possible.
Pictures of the mass die-off surfaced on social media showing schools of fish spread across the Haihe River shoreline, six kilometres away from the blast site.
An aerial view of a large hole in the ground in the aftermath of a huge explosion that rocked the port city of Tianjin.
Chinese authorities have denied that the deaths of thousands of fish are linked to last week’s chemical explosions in Tianjin, The Guardian reported.
“When the temperature rises, oxygen will evaporate and fish may die of hypoxia”, Deng told reporters.
Cyanide levels in pools of water near the site are up to 356 times above normal.
These included about 1,300 tons of oxide compounds, mainly potassium nitrate and ammonium nitrate; 500 tons of flammable materials, consisting of metallic sodium and magnesium; and 700 tonnes of highly toxic substances, mainly sodium cyanide, according to Xinhua.
Nationwide inspections of facilities handling unsafe chemicals and explosives were ordered by China’s State Council after the blasts last week.
Wu Yixiu, an activist with Greenpeace in China, said there was most likely an array of toxic chemicals in the water that had yet to be detected.
In Beijing alone, an inspection of 124 sites that stored unsafe chemicals found hazards at 85 firms, Xinhua said late on Thursday, citing Beijing’s work safety bureau.
The developments came amid growing public fury over the government’s alleged mismanagement that residents say led to the blasts.
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Zong said Ruihai was owned by Yu Xuewei, a former executive at the state-run Tianjin Binhai Logistics Co, and Dong Shexuan, the son of a former Tianjin Port police chief.
