Massive explosion rocks Tianjin, northern China, hundreds of people have been injured and at least 17 killed.
A shipment of “dangerous goods” in a warehouse went up in flames shortly before midnight local time (1600 GMT), state media reported, causing explosions so strong that they shook homes on the other side of the city and sent flaming debris arching over nearby high-rise buildings. Early Thursday morning China’s President Xi Jinping urged full efforts to rescue those injured in the blasts, state media said. Xi demanded that authorities quickly control, and extinguish the fire, 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 website. Three or four hundred people arrived at the Tianjin harbour hospital after at least two devastating blasts, the Beijing News reported, quoting an unnamed medic who works there. Hundreds had sought treatment for injuries, while uninjured citizens lined up to donate blood. Many were also injured by flying glass, and one CCTV video apparently showed an entire glass door being blown in by the force of the explosion, landing on a man waiting for it to open.
The explosions happened just before midnight in an industrial area of the port filled with warehouses and containers, although there are some residential buildings a few hundred metres away. It triggered secondary explosions and blazes which burned through the night, and were still sending out clouds of black smoke in the morning. Firefighting teams had lost contact with at least two people fighting the fire. The biggest blasts, which took place within 30 seconds, were so strong that they registered at a nearby earthquake monitoring centre. The first blast was equal in strength to the detonation of three tons of TNT, while the second was the equivalent of 21 tons of the explosive, said the China Earthquake Networks Centre.
The government has not yet commented on what caused the blast, but if it is a safety lapse in the handling of dangerous shipments, it would be the latest in a long line of grim accidents……
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