Last August 13, 2015, China made the headlines when a huge explosion occurred, taking hundreds of lives as a warehouse in North-eastern China's Tianjin municipality sent up massive fireballs that turned night into day at the Chinese port city to Tianjin. A rapid succession of explosions then left more than a dozen fire fighters missing.
As per business insider, rescuers were able to successfully pull a survivor out of the industrial zone after 32 hours. The authorities are moving forward in dealing with the fire that is still smouldering amid the potentially dangerous chemicals.
As per the New York Times, Zhou Tian, Tianjin Fire Department made a statement on news conference early Friday stating:
"Reinforcements had just arrived on the scene and were just getting to work when the explosions occurred and therefore there was no chance to escape, and that's why the casualties were so severe, We're now doing all we can to rescue the missing"
He then made a statement regarding the complexity of the chemical mix that caused an explosion stating: "Many types of different materials with different characteristics are mixed together and could at any time result in a chemical reaction or explosion,"
Many residents are already taking precautions as they won't take any chances and most of the, could be seen air-filtered mask, one local then said: "I don't usually wear a mask but I don't quite trust what the government says, I'm doing this for my child." said Ma Wiehan, wearing a mask while walking with her daughter.
As of today, authorities have assured the public that the blasts have not contaminated the air but have been relatively reticent about other concerns that are being raised, such as whether residences were too close to the warehouse and whether fire fighters may have spread the blast by spraying water on volatile chemicals.
