http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/world/asia/chinese-port-city-tianjin-rocked-by-enormous-explosion.html?_r=0
Chinese Port City of Tianjin Rocked by Deadly Explosions
HONG KONG — Enormous fiery explosions thundered through a warehouse storing hazardous goods in China’s northeast port city of Tianjin late Wednesday, the police and state news media reported, killing at least seven people, sending dozens to hospitals and causing extensive damage.
An unidentified number of people were trapped in the wreckage, the Tianjin Police Department said in a statement.
The official Xinhua news agency and other state-run news outlets posted graphic video clips of the blasts, showing a fire and a huge flash of light that resembled a mushroom cloud illuminating the darkness.
Another video posted by People’s Daily showed a person blown down by a wall of shattering glass and debris.
Xinhua said an initial blast originated at a warehouse in Tianjin’s Binhai District at around 11:30 p.m. and set off “further explosions in companies nearby.”
The Tianjin Police Department statement said that at least seven people had died and that a private concern, identified as the Rui Hai International Logistics Co. owned the warehouse, which was storing hazardous goods.
The precise nature of the materials that exploded was not made clear and there was no indication whether the blast was accidental or intentional.
“The shock waves were felt kilometers away, with some residents claiming their window glass and fish tanks shattered,” Xinhua said.
The Beijing News said on its website that between 300 and 400 people had been hospitalized, but that figure could not be immediately confirmed. It also reported that more than 400 Tianjin residents had lined up to donate blood at the Fifth Center Hospital.
According to the China Earthquake Administration’s official account on Weibo, a web messaging network similar to Twitter, the first explosion took place at 11:34 p.m. and registered as a magnitude 2.3. It said a second, magnitude-2.9 explosion happened 30 seconds later, and called that blast “the equivalent of 21 tons of TNT.”
The Tianjin Fire Department reported that at least 35 fire engines had been dispatched to the blast site to extinguish the fire and that at least four firefighters had been injured.
Earlier reports on state news media said the blast appeared to emanate from either a gas station or storage terminal of hazardous chemicals.
Electric power to the blast area was cut and streets were sealed off by the police.
Tianjin, a major industrial port of more than seven million people on the Bohai Bay, is about 90 miles east of Beijing.
Yufan Huang contributed reporting from Beijing, and Rick Gladstone from New York.
