Deadliest disaster for firefighters in decades with 85 still missing
Print Edition
HUNDREDS of tons of highly poisonous cyanide were being stored at the warehouse devastated by two giant explosions in the Chinese port city of Tianjin which killed at least 112 people, a senior military officer said yesterday.
The comments by Shi Luze, chief of the general staff of the Beijing military region, were the first official confirmation of the presence of the chemical at the hazardous goods storage facility at the center of the massive blasts.
More than 700 people were injured and 95 people, including 85 firefighters, are missing after a fire and rapid succession of blasts late on Wednesday hit the warehouse in a mostly industrial area of Tianjin, 120 kilometers east of Beijing.
The country’s top prosecuting office announced yesterday that it was setting up a team to investigate possible offenses such as dereliction of duty related to the disaster.
Zhi Feng, general manager of warehouse operator Ruihai International Logistics, is already under police watch while he receives medical treatment for his injuries.
Ten more bodies were found on Saturday, pushing the death toll to 112, according to Gong Jiansheng, vice head of the city’s publicity department.
Twenty four victims have been identified, Gong said.
Authorities confirmed the presence of “several hundred” tons of sodium cyanide at the site at the time of the blasts, although they said there had not been any devastating leaks.
Sodium cyanide can form a flammable gas on contact with water, and several hundred tons would be a clear violation of rules cited by state media that the warehouse could store no more than 10 tons at a time.
Shi told reporters that leaked chemicals were being neutralized and those still in packages removed from the site.
He also said that 3,000 soldiers had been dispatched to the disaster zone to clean up any leaks of hazardous materials.
Shi said rescuers were using hydrogen peroxide to neutralize the toxins and building cofferdams to enclose the damaged barrels, while trucking away those still intact.
Only safe levels of harmful gas were detected near the blast site, he added.
He said more than 2,000 rescuers are searching and cleaning hazardous chemicals outside the core area.
Military chemical specialists found different types of chemicals, including magnesium particles and sulphur scattered in buildings near the core area.
Water and earth samples have been handed over to environmental authorities for testing.
Authorities temporarily detected highly toxic hydrogen cyanide in the air slightly above safety levels at two locations, Tianjin environmental official Bao Jingling told a news conference yesterday morning.
However, the contamination on Saturday afternoon, at 4 percent and 50 percent above the safety level, was no longer detectable later in the day, Bao added.
Tianjin officials have ordered a citywide check on any potential safety risks and violation of fire rules.
Premier Li Keqiang was in Tianjin yesterday, visiting those injured and displaced by the disaster.
The death toll included at least 21 firefighters — making the disaster the deadliest for Chinese firefighters in more than six decades — and their toll could go much higher given the number still missing.
About 1,000 firefighters responded to the disaster.
Concerns have been raised as to whether they were put into harm’s way in the initial response to the fire and whether the type of hazardous material was properly taken into account in the way the firefighters responded.
The massive explosions happened about 40 minutes after reports of a fire at the warehouse in Binhai New Area and after an initial wave of firefighters arrived and, reportedly, doused some of the area with water.
A total of 698 people are still in hospital, including 57 in critical or serious conditions, while 77 others have been discharged. More than 200 medical experts and over 4,000 other health workers are treating the injured.
Firefighter Liao Jiancheng, his face and arms bruised and suffering from broken bones in his foot, spent his 23rd birthday on Thursday at the city’s TEDA Hospital . He was one of only three members of an eight-man crew on one fire engine who survived.
“As soon as he saw me, he said, ‘mom, I lost many buddies’,” said his mother. “He’s lucky, only slightly injured.”
Despite the tragedy, Liao, from central China’s Hunan Province, said he wants to continue in his profession, because he was “loath to part with my comrades-in-arms.”
Zhou Ti, a 19-year-old firefighter rescued on Friday morning, is in a stable condition after treatment in TEDA’s thoracic surgery department. He was able to take liquid food yesterday.
Han Fengqun, a man in his 50s who was found some 50 meters away from the site of the blasts on Saturday afternoon, is in a critical condition with serious lung damage, according to sources with the No. 254 hospital in Tianjin.
Local officials have been hard-pressed to explain why authorities permitted hazardous goods warehouses so close to residential complexes and critical infrastructure, clearly in violation of the Chinese regulations that state hazmat storage should be 1,000 meters from homes and public structures.
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