Soldiers from a People’s Liberation Army chemical-defence unit work to neutralize sodium cyanide residue on the charred vehicle bodes after the massive explosions at a port in northeastern China’s Tianjin Municipality Thursday, August 20, 2015.
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He explained that the large amount of dead fish was normal during hot summers when run-off pollution from the the land may flow into the river and sea after rainfall, which may cause eutrophication and suffocate the fish.
While the appearance of the fish seems ominous, at present, the bureau is yet to confirm or deny whether the explosions led to their death.
Tianjin has strengthened its efforts to prevent the dispersal of hundreds of tonnes of toxic cyanide from the site of the warehouse explosions amid rainfall forecast. The blasts at a hazardous goods storage facility last week triggered a giant fireball and killed at least 114 people.
New fires broke out on Friday in and around the blast site, which is scattered with chemicals and flammable substances including the highly toxic sodium cyanide, Xinhua said.
Cyanide levels 356 times above acceptable standards were recorded. About 700 people were hospitalised. The web site additionally stated that though Tianjin officers had declared the town’s consuming water protected, Chinese language media sources stated cyanide ranges within the ocean waters have been discovered to be as a lot as 277 occasions above protected ranges.
Greenpeace have said that tests around the blast site indicate that water supplies were not severely contaminated with cyanide, but that they did not “disprove the presence of other hazardous chemicals in the water”. “All the polluted water is contained in the cordoned off area“, environment protection official Tian Weiyong told reporters.
Residents in Tianjin have already formed their conclusion, however.
Other problems exposed by the blasts include inadequate safety management of risky materials at ports, irregular practices among workers, weak emergency responses to incidents and lax supervision by authorities, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
China has become the world’s largest producer and consumer of chemicals used in industries such as automotive, construction and textiles on the back of its decades-long economic boom.
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Xi presided over a meeting of the most senior members of the CPC Central Committee’s Political Bureau convened to hear a report by a team set up by the State Council, China’s cabinet, to investigate the blasts.
