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.

Tianjin officials have ordered a city-wide check on other violations of fire rules. Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, was in Tianjin yesterday, visiting the injured and displaced. Angry relatives of the missing firefighters, and local residents whose homes were destroyed, protested at a government news conference on Sunday, to demand information and accountability.

The death toll includes 21 firefighters — the deadliest for Chinese firefighters in six decades — and that number could go much higher. A thousand firefighters responded to the disaster, and 85 of them remain unaccounted for.

The public has raised concerns that firefighters were put into harm’s way — the hazardous material includes compounds combustible on contact with water. The massive explosions happened 40 minutes after reports of a fire at the warehouse and after an initial wave of firefighters arrived and, reportedly, doused some of the area with water.

Outside the Mayfair Hotel, where the authorities hold regular news conferences, a woman pleaded yesterday for information about her husband.

“They have said nothing. We know nothing,” the woman said. “We’ve been told nothing.”

Another man demanded information from a government official. “We’ve been here for three days, and we’ve not had one piece of information,” he said.

Local officials have been hard-pressed to explain why authorities permitted hazardous-goods warehouses so close to residential complexes and critical infrastructure, in violation of the Chinese rule that hazmat (hazardous materials and items) storage should be 1,000 metres away from homes and public structures.

Homeowners of the nearby Qihang residential compound unfurled banners demanding government accountability and compensation for their homes. Many were wearing masks, and some had bandages, possibly over cuts. Many people in the area suffered injuries from glass shattered in the huge fireballs that lit up the night sky on Wednesday.