2015-08-14
A woman wearing a face mask walks along a road after a blast at a container terminal in Tianjin, Aug. 13, 2015.
ImagineChina
Pollution fears were growing among the residents of the northern Chinese city of Tianjin on Friday, as the ruling Chinese Communist Party kept a stranglehold on information on suspected dangerous chemicals involved in Wednesday night’s massive explosions.
Up to 1,000 firefighters were still struggling to extinguish blazes at the site on Friday, with smoke billowing from three areas, sparking fears over whether more toxic fumes would contaminate the city’s air, official media and local residents said.
Environmental officials certified the facility—where the fires, then twin blasts, originated—in 2014 for the storage of dangerous and toxic chemicals including butanone, an explosive industrial solvent, sodium cyanide and compressed natural gas.
A volunteer helping families evacuate from homes near the blast site said he had smelled the characteristic odor of bitter almonds linked with sodium cyanide.
“You can smell that smell within a radius of two or three kilometers (one or two miles),” the volunteer said. “We are providing the injured and their relatives with free face masks.”
“Those on the front line [near the blast site] have been provided with chemical body suits and helmets,” he said.
A report from state broadcaster CCTV said: “At present there is no water supply. Pungent smells fill the air.”
“Citizens are worried that dangerous materials may pollute the air and they are prepared to evacuate from the area,” it said.
Wednesday night’s blast came after firefighters were called to a container wharf owned by Ruihai Logistics that was storing ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate and calcium carbide at the time, after several containers had caught fire, police statements and official media reported.
Experts have speculated that the blasts may have been triggered when water was hosed on calcium carbide by firefighters.
The death toll was reported at 56 on Friday, and reports compiled by RFA suggest that at least 1,200 people were were injured.
The official Xinhua news agency said 721 people had been hospitalized, 25 of whom were in critical condition, however.
A team of 217 nuclear and biochemical materials specialists from the Chinese military are currently in Tianjin to inspect the site, it added.
Greenpeace warned on Thursday that rain could transfer airborne chemicals into water systems, and called for close and careful monitoring to identify what substances were being released into the air.
Government officials have yet to confirm what substances are involved.
