News Digest

China blast zone evacuated over contamination fear; 104 dead

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. Chinese authorities have ordered the evacuation of a 3-kilometer (1.8-mile) zone around the northern port city over chemical contamination fears from the blasts and fires that continue to rage. Police and military staff are deployed at checkpoints leading to the explosion site, and helicopters are hovering above. 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 form a flammable gas upon contact with water.

There was no chance to escape, and that’s why the casualties were so severe…we’re now doing all we can to rescue the missing.

Tianjin Fire Department head Zhou Tian

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. Angry relatives of missing firefighters stormed a government news conference to demand any information on their loved ones, who have not been seen since Wednesday’s blasts. 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, 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Beijing. One additional survivor was found Saturday.

We have gone to each and every hospital by ourselves and not found them…There is no government official willing to meet us. Not even one.

Wang Baoxia, whose elder brother is missing