New explosions and fire in Tianjin send smoke into the sky
New explosions rocked Tianjin on Saturday at the site of a previous chemical warehouse fire and explosions that killed dozens in China this week, state media reported.
Fire has reignited there, sending thick plumes of black smoke into the sky, according to Xinhua news agency.
Authorities evacuated all persons within three kilometers (1.8 miles), Beijing News reported, citing Armed Police. CNN has reported at least one disaster recovery shelter located within the new evacuation radius.
The original spectacular blasts on Wednesday, one of which was the equivalent of more than 20 tons of TNT exploding, left at least 85 dead, more than 700 injured and thousands homeless, officials say.
Flames had appeared to be largely extinguished by Friday, but residents were still worried about lingering contamination after the previous, spectacular explosive fires at the chemical warehouse.
“I asked my in-laws to take my daughter home, I don’t want them to stay here,” migrant worker Tian Binyan said. “I’m worried. I heard it’s going to rain later and that would make the air toxic.”
She was among the 6,000 or so displaced by the fire and explosions that rocked the port Wednesday night, sending fireballs many stories high and shooting plumes of smoke into the sky.
What chemicals did the warehouse store?
Tianjin officials say they are unable to give a detailed list of exactly what chemicals were being stored at the warehouse.
Gao Huaiyou, the deputy director of the city’s Work Safety Administration, said Friday the warehouse was only a temporary storage facility. Materials were kept there briefly when they arrived at the port and before they were transported elsewhere.
Sodium cyanide, a highly toxic chemical that can rapidly kill humans exposed to it, was one of the materials, Gao said.
The environmental group Greenpeace, citing a local monitoring station, said it believed other dangerous chemicals stored at the site included toluene diisocyanate and calcium carbide.
Gao said further investigation, including checks of customs records, would be needed to try to establish the types and amounts of the chemicals at the warehouse.
What caused the blasts?
Fire officials say hazardous chemicals stored at the warehouse were ignited by fire. But the cause of the fire has yet to be determined.
Officials didn’t address the issue directly at the news conference Friday morning.
Executives from Rui Hai International Logistics Co., the company that owned the warehouse, have been taken into custody, state media reported Thursday.
Lei Jinde, an official from the Chinese Public Security Ministry’s firefighting bureau, told thepaper.cn, a Shanghai-based newspaper, in a telephone interview that the first team of firefighters used water in an attempt to contain the fire. It was necessary to cool the blaze, he said, according to a CNN translation.
But water isn’t the best fire suppressant for some chemicals.
Calcium carbide reacts with water to form acetylene, which can catch fire.
“We knew there was calcium carbide inside (the warehouse), but no one had knowledge if it was exploding or on fire,” Lei said. “It’s not that the firefighters were stupid that they would still use water (to put out) after knowing there was calcium carbide. I didn’t mean that. We absolutely can’t say it was wrong to use water.”
Authorities in Tianjin appeared to have been concerned recently about the handling of hazardous materials at the port.
A notice posted by the Tianjin Administration of Work Safety on its website last week said city officials held a meeting with executives of more than 20 companies that handle dangerous chemicals at the port.
How many lives did the explosions claim?
Of the at least 85 people confirmed dead, 21 were firefighters, but many are still missing, including dozens of employees of the company that owned the warehouse, according to Xinhua.
One firefighter was rescued Friday from the rubble, Xinhua reported.
The district where the warehouse was located is thinly populated. It’s roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the center of the city, a sprawling metropolis of more than 13 million people. About 90,000 lived within a 5-kilometer radius of the blast site, the China Earthquake Networks Center said.
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