Topic
Two blasts ripped through the industrial Binhai New Area in the port city of Tianjin, China, late on August 12, killing 173 people - including firefighters - and sending shockwaves as far as 20 kilometres away. Hundreds were reported injured and swathes of buildings, apartments, vehicles and other infrastructure were burned or destroyed. State media said a shipment of explosive materials had ignited at a warehouse run by Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics, which handles are sodium cyanide and the toxic toluene diisocyanate, and triggered two explosions that occurred within seconds of each other. The National Earthquake Bureau said the first blast's strength was equivalent to 3 tonnes of TNT and the second was the equivalent of 21 tonnes. President Xi Jinping himself ordered authorities to contain the disaster and secure the area.
Storing items such as ammonium nitrate close to city centres only invites tragedy, as we saw in Tianjin five years ago and now in Lebanon.
- Tianjin, one of China’s four municipalities, is grabbing attention as its once-booming economy slowly fades
- Its relative decline shows the limits of state-led growth and is a cautionary tale for debt-fuelled development
It was in Tianjin that around midnight on August 12, 2015, a series of blasts at the Ruihai International Logistics chemical warehouse sparked an inferno that claimed 173 lives and injured nearly 800.
Until a few months ago, Meng Fanjie considered herself among China’s rising middle class.
Nothing unusual was found in 40 samples of food supplied to Hong Kong’s Centre for Food Safety from Tianjin following deadly chemical explosions, the secretary for food and health said.
Data published on Tuesday show shipments fell 6.1 per cent in yuan terms compared with year before and highlight sliding prices of inputs to China’s factories and their exports.
Families of dead contract firefighters row with Tianjin government over warehouse blast compensation
Executive Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli, a member of the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, is fully supporting an aggressive investigation and transparent clean-up effort, according to Xinhua
Contaminated soil from Tianjin blasts to be stored in ‘leak-proof’ tank just 4km from explosion site
The authorities in Tianjin are building a 20,000-square metre “leak-proof” tank to store contaminated soil from the scene of the huge explosions at a dangerous goods warehouse earlier this month.
