‘Tonnes’ of cyanide stored at Tianjin site
Teen held for claiming father killed in blasts
TIANJIN: Hundreds of tonnes of highly poisonous cyanide were being stored at the warehouse devastated by giant explosions in the Chinese port of Tianjin which killed 112, 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 centre of the blast.
Nearly 100 people remain missing, including 85 firefighters, though officials cautioned that some of them could be among the 88 unidentified corpses so far found. More than 700 people have also been hospitalised.
Mr Shi, who is a general, said cyanide had been identified at two locations in the blast zone. “The volume was about several hundreds of tonnes according to preliminary estimates,” he said.
A military team of 217 chemical and nuclear experts was deployed early on, and earlier Chinese reports said 700 tonnes of sodium cyanide — 70 times the permitted amount — were at the site.
Officials have called in experts from producers of the material — exposure to which the US Centres for Disease Control says can be “rapidly fatal” — to help handle it, and the neutralising agent hydrogen peroxide has been used.
Meanwhile, a Chinese teenager has been detained for allegedly obtaining thousands of dollars in donations after falsely claiming her father was killed in devastating explosions in Tianjin, police said yesterday.
The woman, surnamed Yang, had initially claimed on Sina Weibo that her father was missing as a result of the blasts.
The 19-year-old — who was detained by police in Fangchenggang in the southern region of Guangxi, far from Tianjin — saw her Weibo follower numbers shoot up as a result of the post, Fangchenggang police said on their verified Weibo account.
According to police, she then published a second post in which she claimed her father died in the explosions, spurring more than 3,000 fellow users to donate upwards of 90,000 yuan (497,000 baht) via the social media platform.
Ms Yang was unable to withdraw the funds, however, as her account was frozen after several Weibo users reported her as suspicious, police said.
In the wake of the blasts, Tianjin residents, relatives of the victims and online commentators have slammed local authorities for a lack of transparency.
Yesterday, sobbing men confronted security at the hotel where officials have been briefing journalists, with one shouting, “Police, I will kill someone!” in what appeared to be a desperate bid to draw attention before being comforted by a policeman. Outside, residents of a building damaged by the blasts held a protest.
The government has moved to limit criticism of the handling of the aftermath, with 50 websites shut down or suspended, according to the Cyberspace Administration of China. Critical social media posts have been blocked, and more than 360 social media accounts punished.