Hundreds injured in huge China port blast
The Australian
August 13, 2015 4:31PM
Scott Murdoch China Correspondent
Beijing
A series of enormous explosions at an industrial area in the Chinese port of Tianjin killed at least 44 people and injured more than 500, state media reports, unleashing a fireball that ripped through the night sky.
The official Xinhua News agency says the death toll includes 12 firefighters.
An AFP reporter at the scene saw shattered glass up to 3km from the blast site, after a shipment of explosives detonated in a warehouse, raining debris on the city and starting huge fires.
Images showed a monumental blast soaring into the air, walls of flame enveloping buildings, ranks of burnt-out cars, and shipping containers scattered like children’s building blocks.
Paramedics stretchered the wounded into the city’s hospitals as doctors bandaged up victims, many of them covered in blood after the impact of the explosion was felt for several kilometres, even being picked up by a Japanese weather satellite.
Interactive Gallery China explosion
A major explosion which ripped through the major city of Tianjin, killing at least 17 people and leaving up to 400 people in hospital. Head here for the full story. Picture: Screen capture via Xinhau News
The blast ripped through a container handling facility in the port city of Tianjin, which lies about 140km southeast of Beijing, about 11.30pm local time (1.30am AEST).
Tianjin is one of China’s biggest cities, with a population of nearly 15 million people
It prompted a major state of emergency to be declared in the city which is a shipping and bulk commodities handling hub.
Witnesses described a fireball from the blasts ripping through the night sky.
Shattered glass was strewn up to three kilometres from the blast site, after a shipment of explosives detonated in an industrial zone, raining debris on the city.
Plumes of smoke still billowed over buildings six hours after the explosion.
“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. “I’ve never even thought I’d see such a thing. It was terrifying but also beautiful.”
At the nearby Taida Hospital as dawn broke, military medical tents were set up. Photos circulating online showed patients in bandages and with cuts.
“The fireball was huge, maybe as much as 100 metres tall,” said 27-year-old Huang Shiting, whose house is close to the port area of the city where the explosion took place.
“I heard the first explosion and everyone went outside, then there was a series of more explosions, windows shattered and a lot of people who were inside were hurt and came running out, bleeding,” he said.
Huge explosions rock Tianjin in northeast China Huge explosions rock Tianjin in northeast China Authorities say 38 firemen are missing, leaving them to fear the death toll will rise today.
Xinhua, the state news agency said, the Tianjin fire brigade sent 12 teams after receiving fire report from Ruihai warehouse at the Binhai New Area Wednesday, which stores dangerous and chemical goods.
The brigade then sent another nine teams and 35 fire engines as reinforcement.
There are fears that the explosion has caused toxic air in Tianjin that could spread to Beijing in the next few hours. Residents in the capital have been warned to stay indoors.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has declared “all out efforts” must be made to find anyone trapped in the scene. The first explosion in the container facility caused a ripple effect with a number of smaller blasts occurring soon
Communist Party newspaper the People’s Daily said in a post on Chinese social network Weibo that more people remained trapped by a huge fire unleashed by the explosives.
Images obtained by AFP showed residents, some partially clothed, running for shelter on a street strewn with debris.
China: Hundreds injured in HUGE Tianjin explosion
China: Hundreds injured in HUGE Tianjin explosion
Between 300 and 400 injured people had arrived at a single hospital, according to the Beijing News, which also cited a worker at another healthy facility saying there were too many new patients to count.
State broadcaster CCTV said in a Twitter post that President Xi Jinping had urged “all-out efforts to rescue victims and extinguish the fire”.
China has a dismal industrial safety record as some factory and warehouse owners evade regulations to save money and pay off corrupt officials to look the other way.
In 2013, a pipeline explosion at state-owned oil refiner Sinopec’s facility in the eastern port of Qingdao killed 62 people and injured 136.
In July this year, 15 people were killed and more than a dozen injured when an illegal fireworks warehouse exploded in northern Hebei province.
And at least 71 were killed in an explosion at a car parts factory in Kunshan, near Shanghai, in August last year.
The magnitude of the first explosion was the equivalent of detonating three tonnes of TNT, the China Earthquake Networks Centre said on its verified Weibo account, and was followed by a second stronger blast equal to detonating 21 tonnes of the explosive.
Much of the area surrounding the explosion is made up of construction sites for residential and office buildings.
Worker dormitories, built of flimsy sheets of thin metal, were torn apart by the blast.
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.
“The explosion was terrifying, and I almost passed out,” he told AFP. “I’m sorry, I still can’t think straight, I’m a bit confused,” he said.
Hospital staff said most of those that arrived overnight had been discharged.
China has a dismal industrial safety record as some owners evade regulations to save money and pay off corrupt officials to look the other way.
Additional reporting: AFP
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