The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Blast zone evacuated over contamination fear
New small explosions rocked a disaster zone in the Chinese port of Tianjin on Saturday. Several more bodies were found, bringing the death toll to 104.
New small explosions rocked a disaster zone in the Chinese port of Tianjin on Saturday as teams scrambled to clear dangerous chemical contamination and found several more bodies to bring the death toll to 104 in massive blasts earlier in the week.
Angry relatives of missing firefighters stormed a government news conference to demand any information on their loved ones, who have not been seen since a fire and rapid succession of blasts late Wednesday at a warehouse for hazardous chemicals in a mostly industrial area.
The death toll in the ensuing inferno included at least 21 firefighters — making the disaster the deadliest for Chinese firefighters in more than six decades.
An unknown number of firefighters remain missing, and a total of 720 people were injured in the disaster in Tianjin, 75 miles east of Beijing. One additional survivor was found Saturday.
Two Chinese news outlets, including the state-run The Paper, reported that the warehouse was storing 700 tons of sodium cyanide — 70 times more than it should have been holding at one time — and that authorities were rushing to clean it up.
Sodium cyanide is a toxic chemical that can forma flammable gas upon contact with water.
Authorities also detected the highly toxic hydrogen cyanide in the air at levels slightly above safety levels at two locations in the afternoon, The Paper cited Tianjin environmental official Wen Wurui as saying.
But the contamination was no longer detected later Saturday and there was no obvious impact on anybody in the area, the report said.
The disaster has raised questions about whether dangerous chemicals were being stored too close to residential compounds, and whether firefighters may have triggered the blasts, possibly because they were unaware the warehouse contained chemicals combustible on contact with water.
The massive explosions Wednesday happened about 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.
Authorities on Saturday pulled out one survivor from a shipping container, state media reported. His identity was not immediately known. Television video showed the man being carried out on a str-+etcher by a group of soldiers wearing gas masks.
Authorities were keeping residents, journalists and other people not involved in the disaster response outside a 1.8-mile radius around the site of the explosions in what media reports said was an operation to clean up the sodium cyanide.
Flames were spotted in the disaster area on Saturday, and explosions were reported by witnesses and state media.
In one case, heavy smoke from a fire engulfing several cars rose as high as 33 feet accompanied by at least five explosions.
Police and military personnel manned checkpoints on roads leading to the blast sites, and helicopters were seen hovering in the overcast sky.
The air had a metallic chemical smell, and there was uneasiness over rain forecasts, although it was warm and windy.
Meanwhile, family members of missing firefighters disrupted the latest news conference about the disaster, demanding to know whether their loved ones were still alive.
“(The authorities) didn’t notify us at all,” said Liu Huan, whose son Liu Chuntao has been missing since late Wednesday. “Our son is a firefighter, and there was a team of firefighters who lost contact. We couldn’t contact him.”
Liu Longwang said she had not heard a word on her son Liu Ziqiao, also a firefighter. “We are extremely worried,” she said. “He just turned 18.”