Powerful explosions rocked the Chinese port city of Tianjin on Wednesday, killing at least 17 people, officials and state media said.
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The toll from the massive warehouse explosions in China’s Tianjin city have risen to 85, rescue officials said on Saturday. The flames and flying debris injured more than 700 people, at least 70 of whom remained in a critical condition.
In a silver lining to an otherwise grim day, a 19-year- old firefighter, Zhou Ti, was pulled out over 32 hours after blasts ravaged the areas.
The warehouse was owned by Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai worldwide Logistics Company, which was founded in 2011.
Shockwaves from the blasts late on Wednesday were felt by residents in apartment blocks kilometres away in the city of 15 million people.
Armed police were carrying out the evacuation after highly poisonous sodium cyanide was found at the site, local media reports said, as the blaze at the hazardous goods storage facility intensified dramatically after seven or eight new explosions on Saturday. They also have been publicly reticent about suspicions that firefighters may have sparked the explosions by spraying water on volatile chemicals. “I’m really scared, but I don’t even know what to be scared of, the government hasn’t said anything, nothing about what we should do to keep our families safe from the chemicals”, Liu Zongguang, 50, told AFP news agency in Tianjin. He added that the facility was listed as holding ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate and calcium carbide.
The State Council, China’s cabinet, said on Friday that it would crack down on illegal activities to strengthen industry safety in a statement posted on its website.
Also, more than 720 were hospitalized with injuries, and more than 6,000 were displaced from their homes due to the chemicals that were released into the air from the explosions.
Officials did not address the issue directly at a news conference Friday morning.
A retired environmental official told reporters that air pollution posed no risk.
The explosions have disrupted the flow of cars, oil, iron ore and other items through the world’s 10th largest port.
At the moment, SOA has obtained nearly 200 samples taken from various sea areas in and around the Tianjin port. The government agency said it will take further samples and report immediately if any anomalies are found.
President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang urged local authorities to make “all-out efforts” to save those injured, thoroughly investigate the cause of the blasts and punish those responsible, Xinhua said.
Officials have been unable to determine exactly what kinds of chemicals were being stored at the site, saying that the company had provided them with conflicting accounts.
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The district where the warehouse was located is thinly populated and situated roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the center of Tianjin.
