112 dead in toxic China blast zone

Emergency workers yesterday pulled more bodies from a massive blast site in the Chinese port of Tianjin, pushing the death toll to 112, as teams scrambled to clear chemical contamination.

More than 700 people were injured, and 95 people, including dozens of firefighters, are missing, after a fire and a rapid succession of blasts hit a warehouse for hazardous chemicals in the industrial area of Tianjin, 120km east of Beijing on Wednesday.

There were “several hundred” tons of sodium cyanide on the site at the time of the blasts, although there have not been any devastating leaks. Sodium cyanide is a toxic chemical that can form a flammable gas upon contact with water, and several hundred tons would be a violation of rules that the warehouse could store no more than 10 tons at a time.