Tianjin death toll rises to 112, scores still missing

AUGUST 16, 2015 : AFP
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Authorities pulled more bodies from a massive blast site in the
Chinese port of Tianjin, pushing the death toll to 112 on Sunday
as teams scrambled to clear dangerous chemical
contamination.
Hundreds of people were injured and 85 firefighters and 10
others are missing since a fire and rapid succession of blasts
late Wednesday hit a warehouse for hazardous chemicals in a
mostly industrial area of Tianjin, 120 kilometers (75 miles) east
of Beijing.
New small explosions continued to rock the locked-down
disaster zone over the weekend.
Angry relatives of the missing firefighters stormed a government
news conference Saturday to demand any information on their
loved ones. The death toll includes at least 21 firefighters –
making the disaster the deadliest for Chinese firefighters in more
than six decades.
Two state-run Chinese news outlets, The Paper and the
Southern Metropolis, reported that the warehouse was storing
700 tons of sodium cyanide – 70 times more than it should have
been holding at one time, and that authorities were rushing to
clean it up.
Sodium cyanide is a toxic chemical that can form a flammable
gas upon contact with water.
Authorities also temporarily detected the highly toxic hydrogen
cyanide in the air slightly above safety levels at two locations,
Tianjin environmental official Bao Jingling told a news
conference Sunday morning. The contamination Saturday
afternoon, at 4 percent and 50 percent above the safety level,
was no longer detectable later Saturday, Bao said. “These levels
are actually very low,” he said.

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