The Tianjin disaster is so sad. I haven’t seen anything on my dash about this, so I thought I might make up a basic information post to make clear the scale of the incident and the concerns about what could happen going forward. If you want to check out coverage beyond the sources that I’ve linked, the BBC is doing a good job.
‘The Tianjin explosion’, as people are calling it, was actually a series of explosions in the same location, one of which blew up a chemicals factory owned by Ruhai Logistics.
The China Earthquake Networks Centre said the initial explosion had a power equivalent to three tonnes of TNT detonating, while the second was the equivalent of 21 tonnes. [Source] It was such a powerful event that it could be seen from space and was picked up by satellites. [Source]
The explosions have thrown shipping containers in the air, incinerated thousands of cars, shattered windows, and torn down buildings.
The official death toll currently stands at 55. [Source]
Many of the dead are firefighters who were there trying to control a previous blaze, the origins of which are unclear. [Source] This source notes that four fires are still burning. Many more have been left homeless.
The death toll is suspected to be far higher. Tianjin has a population of 7.5 million. Although the explosion site was in an industrial area, the factory was very close to an apartment complex (the below picture was taken before the explosions).
We may never know the full toll because the state media is being pretty restrictive. Journalists are prevented from accessing areas – being kept six miles away – or speaking to many people [Source]. The government is censoring many posts on Chinese social network Weibo [Source]. This is similar to the government’s reaction after the 2011 Zhejiang train collision (other source) and the new year’s stampede in Shanghai this year.
There are also huge concerns about the toxicity of the chemicals from the explosion (it’s unclear how the explosion began but one of the places which exploded was a chemicals factory – I’ve seen rumours that a power plant exploded first, then an oil tanker, and then the chemicals factory, but I have no idea about their veracity). Reuters reported that according to a 2014 government assessment, the Ruihai facility was designed to store chemicals including butanone, an explosive industrial solvent, sodium cyanide and compressed natural gas. [Source]
Sodium cyanide interacts with water to produce highly toxic fumes. [Source] Rain is forecast. The People’s Daily, the CCP’s official newspaper, has stated that there were 700 tonnes of sodium cyanide at the site [Source].
Chinese state media has not confirmed what other chemicals were on the site, though it has closed drains which flow to the Bohai Sea to stem any leak into larger bodies of water. [Source]
