Massive explosion in Tianjin

[roddy]

Video on the BBC is terrifying. Amazing that what's top item on the BBC news site is such a minor item on Sina.com.cn I almost missed it...I'd provide some links to Chinese sites, but loading speeds are painfully slow at the moment...

 

Anyone in Tianjin? 

[somethingfunny]

Those videos really are shocking.  It's come up as number 1 on my wechat sina news update.

[Mindmaxd]

I am in tianjin,it is very serious exploding,I know some friends live near the exploding area,there is port in tanggu,people don't work now.

[Kenny同志]

It's totally like the city had been hit by some kind of nuclear missile. Horrible! 

[Meng Lelan]

I thought Kenny was in the south not in Tianjin?

 

Fireworks factory?

[Mindmaxd]

There is a dangerous chemical warehouse,there is port area,so many warehouses.

[Kenny同志]

@Meng Lelan

 

Yes, I am in the south, i.e. Hunan. : )

[Bigdumogre]

Saw the video last night

Really scary how huge that explosion was.

[Shelley]

It was a special warehouse for dangerous materials. Obviously something went wrong in a big way. It was no 1 on the late BBC news with some footage and eyewitness explanation.

Last I saw the news 13 dead, hundreds injured, not a good night for china.

[Silent]

Dutch newssite says 44 dead, and in one hospital at least 42 corpses were brought in. Same news item claims over 500 hurt from which 66 serious and 36 fireman are missing. In another source I read 13 fireman killed.

 

If I see the video of the explosion and some of the pictures of the damage I would not be surprised if these figures will rise a lot. Positive might be that it was at/on a container terminal. Container terminals tend to be not too busy, but as there was already a fire going on who knows how many onlookers there were.

[Shelley]

It doesn't surprise me that the numbers have risen, I suspect this will not be the final number either.

[Tianjin42]

I was in Tianjin earlier this week but back in Beijing now. I know that area fairly well (or at least did up until last year) - it is very much an industrial port leading down to the light rail where the more dense residential area begins - all of which is quite some distance from Tianjin city itself. On some of the footage you can see the flood lights of the Tianjin Taida (football) stadium also located on the light rail a couple of stops down from the explosion I think. 

 

As stated - it seems that the numbers of dead will rise substantially but I guess we will see lots of injured due to the broken glass from the shockwave. There aren't usually too many people in that 1 to 2 km area at that time of night so hopefully we won't see extremely high numbers of dead. 

 

Still checking with my contacts over there. Everyone accounted for so far. 

[Silent]

Just read there were about 1000! fireman at the fire before the explosion a few dozen are still missing...

[gato]

There are two big apartment complexes just across the street from the warehouse, one 600m away, another 800m.

http://m.companies.caixin.com/m/2015-08-13/100839239.html

滨海爆炸致多居民小区受损 年前环评报告曾预警

2015年08月13日 15:53T中

万科海港城距离爆炸点直线距离仅600米，住宅小区紧邻危险品储藏库区

　　【财新网】（记者 黎慧玲 黄凯茜 王歆慈）8月12日晚23时左右，天津滨海新区港务集团瑞海物流危化品堆垛发生爆炸，多个居民小区损毁严重。财新记者在现场看到，爆炸点附近多栋居民楼窗户破损，这几个小区的居民已经撤离。昨晚爆炸后周围小区的人都撤到第五大街上打地铺过夜，其中受损最严重的万科海港城（清水港湾）距离爆炸点仅约600米。万科董事会主席王石今早发微博称，“滨海突发爆炸，万科滨海两个小区受到冲击、设施和房屋受到伤害。电梯，燃气和供水均已切断。”

[dwq]

I'm really sorry, but I laughed when somebody shared the fate of his Taobao purchase.

Just wondering if 李勇 is okay.

[junebug1000]

Any update on the condition of the city? I move there next week. Terrible tragedy.

[Flickserve]

Some really gross and tragic pictures coming out on facebook.

[Bigdumogre]

I really hope some new safety regulations come outta this so this does not happen again. Plus I'm really surprised how televised this incident was in America. Really was on every station yesterday morning.

[Lu]

I really hope some new safety regulations come outta this so this does not happen again.

In many cases, enforcing the existing regulations is a lot more useful than making new ones. I think they'd first have to check what went wrong in this case. From what I understood, the company did in fact have permission to store dangerous substances, but of course they might have handled them wrongly.

[Bigdumogre]

In many cases, enforcing the existing regulations is a lot more useful than making new ones. I think they'd first have to check what went wrong in this case. From what I understood, the company did in fact have permission to store dangerous substances, but of course they might have handled them wrongly.

That's what it looks like. They just named a a chemical that causes a explosive gas when water is added (firemen) and its stored there in large quantities. The incoming rain storm may cause another explosion if the fire is not put out by then and it's that chemical that caused it.

So pretty much still a lot of investigation to go