China yesterday defended firefighters who initially hosed water on a blaze in a warehouse storing volatile chemicals, a response foreign experts said could have contributed to two huge blasts that killed 54 people.
More than a dozen firefighters were among those killed by the explosions at the port in the northeastern city of Tianjin on Wednesday night, state media said.
About 700 people were injured, 71 seriously, yet another tragedy in a nation familiar with industrial disasters.
Columns of smoke from fires still burning yesterday rose from the site amid crumpled shipping containers, thousands of torched cars and burnt-out shells of port buildings.
Rescuers pulled one survivor, later identified as a firefighter, from the wreckage, a city official said.
The warehouse, designed to house dangerous and toxic chemicals, was storing mainly ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate and calcium carbide at the time.
Several containers in the warehouse caught fire before the explosions. Chemical safety experts said calcium carbide reacts with water to create acetylene, a highly explosive gas.
Lei Jinde, the deputy propaganda department head of China’s fire department, a part of the Ministry of Public Security, said the first group of firefighters on the scene had used water.
“We knew there was calcium carbide inside but we didn’t know whether it had already exploded,” he said.
“At that point no one knew – it wasn’t that the firefighters were stupid,” Lei said, adding it was a large warehouse and they didn’t know the exact location of the calcium carbide.
CCTV reported another four firefighters were confirmed dead and 13 were still missing. Sixty-six firefighters were among the hundreds of people hospitalised.
David Leggett, a chemical safety expert in California, said the acetylene explosion could have detonated the ammonium nitrate, which explained the level of devastation.
The two blasts were about 30 seconds apart, the second much larger than the first.
Water is recommended to extinguish the two nitrates but a chemical powder is needed for calcium carbide.
The explosions were seen by satellites in space and registered on earthquake sensors.
Firefighters triggered blasts
More than a dozen firefighters were among those killed by the explosions at the port in the northeastern city of Tianjin on Wednesday night, state media said.
About 700 people were injured, 71 seriously, yet another tragedy in a nation familiar with industrial disasters.
Columns of smoke from fires still burning yesterday rose from the site amid crumpled shipping containers, thousands of torched cars and burnt-out shells of port buildings.
Rescuers pulled one survivor, later identified as a firefighter, from the wreckage, a city official said.
The warehouse, designed to house dangerous and toxic chemicals, was storing mainly ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate and calcium carbide at the time.
Several containers in the warehouse caught fire before the explosions. Chemical safety experts said calcium carbide reacts with water to create acetylene, a highly explosive gas.
Lei Jinde, the deputy propaganda department head of China’s fire department, a part of the Ministry of Public Security, said the first group of firefighters on the scene had used water.
“We knew there was calcium carbide inside but we didn’t know whether it had already exploded,” he said.
“At that point no one knew – it wasn’t that the firefighters were stupid,” Lei said, adding it was a large warehouse and they didn’t know the exact location of the calcium carbide.
CCTV reported another four firefighters were confirmed dead and 13 were still missing. Sixty-six firefighters were among the hundreds of people hospitalised.
David Leggett, a chemical safety expert in California, said the acetylene explosion could have detonated the ammonium nitrate, which explained the level of devastation.
The two blasts were about 30 seconds apart, the second much larger than the first.
Water is recommended to extinguish the two nitrates but a chemical powder is needed for calcium carbide.
The explosions were seen by satellites in space and registered on earthquake sensors.
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