China explosions: troops dispatched to assist with cleanup
- The Guardian | UK
- Aug 14, 2015
- 3 min read
Armed troops and elite military units trained to handle nuclear, biological and chemical disasters are being dispatched to the scene of a deadly explosion in northern China as Beijing vowed to deploy “every resource available” to help survivors.
At least 44 deaths and 521 injuries have been confirmed after a fire at warehouse containing “dangerous chemicals” sparked a series of blasts on Wednesday night.
By Thursday afternoon at least 1,000 firefighters were attempting to bring the flames under control around the main disaster zone, a portside industrial estate in Tianjin.
Around 10,000 medical staff were working at 10 different hospitals to treat survivors, Zhang Yong, a local Communist party official, told a press conference. “We will bring things back on track as soon as possible,” he said.
Four vehicles carrying 214 soldiers trained to deal with nuclear, biological and chemical catastrophes were dispatched to Tianjin, which is around 100 miles from Beijing.
During a visit to the scene, China’s public security minister, Guo Shengkun, said every possible measure would be taken to prevent further loss of life or injury. “Deep lessons must be learned,” Guo said, stressing the “absolute necessity” to stop secondary accidents.
Official Chinese reports have blamed the blasts – so powerful they threw vehicles into the air and brought factory roofs crashing down – on hazardous chemicals stored in a warehouse owned by a company called Ruihai International Logistics.
The environmental group Greenpeace said the situation in Tianjin, which is home to around 14 million people, remained volatile and potentially dangerous. “We are concerned that certain chemicals will continue to pose a risk to the residents of Tianjin,” it said.
“According to the Tianjin Tanggu environmental monitoring station, hazardous chemicals stored by the company concerned include sodium cyanide (NaCN), toluene diisocyanate (TDI) and calcium carbide (CaC2), all of which pose direct threats to human health on contact. NaCN in particular is highly toxic. CaC2 and TDI react violently with water and reactive chemicals, with risk of explosion.
This will present a challenge for firefighting and, with rain forecast for tomorrow, is a major hazard.”
Cheng Qian, Greenpeace’s toxics assistant campaign manager in Beijing, said: “It is now critical that relevant authorities monitor the situation closely and release further information on what caused the blast and what chemicals are being released into the air. This will have an impact on measures to fight fires, to protect the residents of Tianjin, and on minimising the potential health and environmental hazards of the blast.”
In an editorial, the Global Times, a Beijing-controlled tabloid, urged authorities to be transparent about the situation. “The Tianjin government must take critical feedback and ensure it can release accurate and timely information. The idea that they wanted to tone down the reporting and even cover it up must be eliminated,” it said.
China’s stability-obsessed leaders often attempt to stifle potentially critical media coverage during disasters. As the rescue operation ramped up on Thursday there were reports of foreign journalists being harassed and obstructed by Chinese officials.
An online national database of company ownership appeared to have been disabled on Thursday afternoon, making it impossible to identify the owners of the logistics firm where the explosions took place.
A notice posted on the official website of the Tianjin Market and Quality Supervision Administration said: “Due to the blast accident, the Tianjin company credibility information system has been temporarily disabled.”
The Global Times recognised there had been public criticism of what some had described as a sluggish government response to the explosions. “For example, Tianjin TV was still broadcasting Korean soap operas 10 hours after the incident,” it said.
However, the newspaper defended the authorities’ overall response. “Such chaos is unavoidable at the beginning of a sudden crisis,” it wrote.
Meanwhile, residents of the area directly around the disaster zone said they were relieved simply to be alive. “This is the first time I have felt so close to death,” a woman who gave her name as Mrs Huo told the Guardian.
“I never thought that something so horrible could happen in real life – and to me. I used to think that this kind of thing only happened in the movies.”
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