Wednesday’s blast, which could be felt kilometres away, was triggered when a shipment of explosives detonated in the warehouse where it was being stored, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
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The magnitude of the first explosion was the equivalent of detonating three tonnes of TNT, the China quake Networks Centre said on its verified Weibo account, while the second was the equivalent of detonating 21 tonnes of the explosive.
At least seven people are confirmed dead and 300 people were injured in the blast, according to People’s Daily.
Photos circulating online show a very big fireball high in the sky, with a mushroom-cloud. It says the firefighters were combing the neighborhood for possible injured residents.
An employee of another hospital also said the emergency department was full, and staff are trying to contact all their doctors, Chinese newspaper The Beijing News reported. “Two years of hard work down the drain”.
“It was like what we were told a nuclear bomb would be like”, said truck driver Zhao Zhencheng, who spent the night in the cab of his truck.
At the nearby Taida Hospital as dawn broke, military medical tents were set up.
At the city’s TEDA hospital, close to the blast site, Zhang Hongjie, 50, sat with his head wrapped in bandages, his arms covered with small cuts from flying glass. It says it handles 1 million tons of cargo annually.
It is one of only four cities in China – along with Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing – to have the status of a province.
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Associated Press writers Ian Mader and Didi Tang in Beijing contributed.
