Two massive explosions caused by flammable goods ripped through an industrial area in the northeast Chinese port city of Tianjin late on Wednesday, killing 17 people and injuring as many as 400, official Chinese media reported on Thursday, August 13.
Authorities had lost contact with 36 firefighters on the scene, the official Beijing News newspaper reported, citing the Tianjin fire department.
The force of the explosions unnerved residents across much of the city of 15 million people, with some posting videos on the Internet that showed giant fireballs shooting into the sky and shockwaves buffeting apartment blocks and cars.
Fires were still burning after dawn, with photographs on Chinese news websites showing what appeared to be several destroyed buildings as well as torched cars at a multi-storey car park inside a logistics base at Tianjin Port. The port, one of the busiest in China, was operating normally, a port official said.
President Xi Jinping demanded that authorities quickly extinguish the fires and “make full effort to rescue and treat the injured and ensure the safety of people and their property”, China Central Television (CCTV) said on its official microblog.
CCTV said the blasts erupted in a shipment of explosives at around 11:30 p.m. local time (1530 GMT), triggering a shockwave that was felt kilometres (miles) away. The second blast came roughly 30 seconds after the first, state media said.
Video posted on YouTube from what appeared to be an apartment building some distance from the scene showed fire shooting into the night sky from the initial blast when the second, much bigger, explosion rocked the area, sending a huge fireball into the air.
Seconds later, shockwaves hit the apartment building.
“Our building is shaking. Is this an atomic bomb?” said a frenzied voice inside.
In other amateur video which appears to be shot closer to the scene, people scream from inside a car as the shockwave hits from the second blast, rocking their vehicle.
The official People’s Daily newspaper said the death toll was 17 while other state media said six firefighters were among the dead.
The official Xinhua news agency gave varying estimates of between 300 and 400 injured, with 32 critically hurt.
Xinhua said the explosions ripped through a warehouse storing “dangerous goods”. The first explosion was equivalent to 3 tonnes of TNT and the second blast 21 tonnes of TNT, it said.
It identified the owner of the warehouse as Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics.
REUTERS
