Massive explosion in china port

[Gigas]

Ya, it was a big one. Looks like a container had something that ignited and set off a shock wave explosion killing 44 and injuring hundreds.




Another after vid showing devastation.

[zorgon]

[zorgon]

[Gigas]

Suit case nuck in a container. What ya think. That looked to be a powerful and loud detonation. That glow looked just a nuck blast with that mushroom cloud not to mention all that destruction for miles around.

[ArMaP]

That looked to be a powerful and loud detonation.

From what I have seen they were at least two explosions, the second being the bigger.

That glow looked just a nuck blast with that mushroom cloud not to mention all that destruction for miles around.

All big explosions make a mushroom cloud.

[space otter]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tianjin-blast-zone-evacuated_55cf398ee4b0ab468d9d79a1?kvcommref=mostpopular

AP
Posted: 08/15/2015 09:21 AM EDT | Edited: 2 hours ago


Tianjin Blast Zone Evacuated Over Contamination Fears

The chemical explosion left over 100 people dead.

A cloud of smoke rises at blast site three days after warehouse explosion on Aug. 15, 2015 in Tianjin, China | Credit: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images


TIANJIN, China (AP) -- New small explosions rocked a disaster zone in the Chinese port of Tianjin on Saturday as teams scrambled to clear dangerous chemical contamination and found several more bodies to bring the death toll to 104 in massive blasts earlier in the week.

Angry relatives of missing firefighters stormed a government news conference to demand any information on their loved ones, who have not been seen since a fire and rapid succession of blasts late Wednesday at a warehouse for hazardous chemicals in a mostly industrial area.

The death toll in the ensuing inferno included at least 21 firefighters - making the disaster the deadliest for Chinese firefighters in more than six decades.

An unknown number of firefighters remain missing, and a total of 720 people were injured in the disaster in Tianjin, 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Beijing. One additional survivor was found Saturday.

Two Chinese news outlets, including the state-run The Paper, 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 detected the highly toxic hydrogen cyanide in the air at levels slightly above safety levels at two locations in the afternoon, The Paper cited Tianjin environmental official Wen Wurui as saying. But the contamination was no longer detected later Saturday and there was no obvious impact on anybody in the area, the report said.

The disaster has raised questions about whether dangerous chemicals were being stored too close to residential compounds, and whether firefighters may have triggered the blasts, possibly because they were unaware the warehouse contained chemicals combustible on contact with water. The massive explosions Wednesday happened about 40 minutes after reports of a fire at the warehouse and after an initial wave of firefighters arrived and, reportedly, doused some of the area with water.

Authorities on Saturday pulled out one survivor from a shipping container, state media reported. His identity was not immediately known. Television video showed the man being carried out on a sketcher by a group of soldiers wearing gas masks.

Authorities were keeping residents, journalists and other people not involved in the disaster response outside a 3-kilometer (1.8-mile) radius around the site of the explosions in what media reports said was an operation to clean up the sodium cyanide.

Flames were spotted in the disaster area on Saturday, and explosions were reported by witnesses and state media.

In one case, heavy smoke from a fire engulfing several cars rose as high as 10 meters (yards), accompanied by at least five explosions.

Police and military personnel manned checkpoints on roads leading to the blast sites, and helicopters were seen hovering in the overcast sky. The air had a metallic chemical smell, and there was uneasiness over rain forecasts, although it was warm and windy.


aol vid at link


Meanwhile, family members of missing firefighters disrupted the latest news conference about the disaster, demanding to know whether their loved ones were still alive.

"(The authorities) didn't notify us at all," said Liu Huan, whose son Liu Chuntao has been missing since late Wednesday. "Our son is a firefighter, and there was a team of firefighters who lost contact. We couldn't contact him."

Liu Longwang said she had not heard a word on her son Liu Ziqiao, also a firefighter. "We are extremely worried," she said. "He just turned 18."

State media reported that the casualties of the first three squads of firefighters to respond and of a neighborhood police station have not yet been fully determined, suggesting that the death toll could rise further.

Tianjin Fire Department head Zhou Tian said at a news conference Friday that the explosions occurred just as reinforcements had arrived on the scene and were getting to work. "There was no chance to escape, and that's why the casualties were so severe," he said. "We're now doing all we can to rescue the missing."

One surviving firefighter, 19-year-old Zhou Ti, was found Friday morning and taken to a hospital. Zhou Ti and Zhou Tian are unrelated.

Li Yonghan, a doctor at Teda Hospital, called Zhou's survival "miraculous" and said Zhou escaped death mainly because he was covered by his fallen comrades. Zhou had massive injuries, including burns and leg cuts.

From his hospital bed, Zhou told state broadcaster CCTV that the fire was spreading out of control. "I was knocked onto the ground at the first blast," recalled Zhou, his eyes swollen and closed. "I covered my head and don't know what happened after that."
Lin Yujie, who lives in a nearby residential complex, said when he initially heard the blasts Wednesday night he thought they were a massive air strike.

"It was just a sea of fire," Lin recalled. "We were really worried that there would be a second or third explosion and what we would do then."

As details of the blasts and the rescue efforts surface, members of the public have been raising questions about whether fire commanders had erred in prematurely sending firefighters into a highly dangerous zone and using water to put out flames on the site known to have stored a variety of hazardous chemicals, including sodium cyanide and calcium carbide, which become flammable on contact with water.

Local officials also have been hard-pressed to explain why authorities permitted hazardous goods warehouses so close to residential complexes and critical infrastructure, clearly in violation of the Chinese rule that hazmat storage should be 1,000 meters (yards) away from homes and public structures.

Pope Francis, meanwhile, offered his prayers to the victims of the disaster. "I assure my prayers for those who lost their lives and for all those persons tried by this disaster," he said Saturday in remarks to thousands of people gathered in St. Peter's Square.

Francis made the remarks despite a tense relationship between Beijing and the Vatican.

[space otter]

this doesn't look like it is improving any

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/amid-new-explosions-and-fires-at-site-of-chinese-blasts-there-is-confusion-over-evacuation-order/ar-BBlMgLP

Los Angeles Times
Julie Makinen
3 hrs ago



Amid new explosions and fires at site of Chinese blasts, there is confusion over evacuation order

© Ng Han Guan Chinese emergency crew survey the site of an explosion in northeastern China's Tianjin municipality Saturday, Aug. 15, 2015. New explosions and fire rocked the Chinese port city of Tianjin on Saturday, where one survivor was...


REPORTING FROM BEIJING - A new round of explosions and fires hit the Chinese port city of Tianjin on Saturday, pouring at least three plumes of black smoke into the sky, as confusion reigned over whether authorities had ordered the evacuation of a two-mile zone around the hazardous chemicals warehouse that exploded earlier in the week.

A 56-year-old man was rescued from a container just 150 feet from the blast site around 2 p.m. Saturday by hazmat teams, state-run China Central Television reported. Photos from the scene showed troops in camouflage protective gear and gas masks carrying the shirtless man to safety on a stretcher. He was later reported to be in stable condition.

Firefighters and hazmat teams have struggled to bring the situation in the Binhai New Area under control for days, and criticism is mounting over multiple aspects of the disaster. The death toll has risen to 104 people, with more than 700 injured. At least 21 firefighters have died. According to the People's Daily, the identity of only 28 of the 104 victims could be immediately confirmed; DNA tests would be performed on the rest.

In yet another sign of confusion, the state-run Xinhua News Agency and other official media outlets reported at around 2 p.m. that authorities had ordered the evacuation of a two-mile zone around the blast site. But at a news conference three hours later, a Tianjin official denied there was any evacuation order, a denial that was later reported by People's Daily and other official outlets. Yet journalists on the scene quoted locals as saying they had been told to evacuate.

A variety of toxic substances were believed to be stored at the site including potassium nitrate, ammonium nitrate, sodium cyanide and calcium carbide. Sodium cyanide has leaked into water seeping from the area, officials say, though measures were taken to block storm drains and other effluent routes.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sodium cyanide can release hydrogen cyanide gas, a highly toxic chemical asphyxiant that interferes with the body's ability to use oxygen.

Exposure to sodium cyanide can be quickly fatal, the CDC says; hydrogen cyanide gas released by sodium cyanide has a distinctive odor described by some people as bitter almond or a musty "old sneakers smell," but many people cannot detect it and the odor does not provide adequate warning of hazardous concentrations.

The operator of a chemical plant in Hebei province has come forward to say that his firm had delivered 700 tons of sodium cyanide to the warehouse where the blasts occurred, even though the warehouse was permitted to store only up to 10 tons of the hazardous material, the Science Daily and other news outlets reported. Authorities were amassing tons of hydrogen peroxide to neutralize the sodium cyanide.

Conflicting reports about evacuations and the appearance of hazmat squads on the scene added to fears about the health hazards for local residents. State-run television has shown footage of hazmat teams in gas masks and protective suits tromping through the disaster area, trying to determine what toxic substances were present, though these specialists apparently did not arrive on the scene until about 36 hours after the initial blasts late Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, family members of some emergency workers confronted Tianjin officials Saturday morning at a press conference. Some claimed that their relatives were contract employees - not full-fledged firefighters - and have not been accounted for in the official death and injury tolls. Authorities denied that that was the case.

"I don't know where my son is. I've no clues. If he is alive, I want to see him. If he is dead, I need to see his body," Liu Huan told the state-run newspaper China Daily. Liu's 22-year-old son, Liu Chuntao, was among the first group of firefighters sent to the scene.

Authorities had said the main fire was extinguished by 6 p.m. Friday night, according to Xinhua. So it was unclear why or how new explosions and fires were set off Saturday.

Video footage carried by state-run media showed at least one of the fires appeared to be several cars burning in a parking lot just south of the blast site. The vehicles were new cars awaiting shipment to dealerships around China and had already been damaged in the initial blasts.

Local fire officials said they had mobilized 66 forklifts, as well as cranes, excavators and armed police trucks to deal with the situation at the site, and had transported 600 tons of sand to the area that could be used to extinguish hot spots.

Authorities have called the complexity and scale of the accident unprecedented and say it's the deadliest incident for firefighters since the founding of Communist China in 1949.

Neither President Xi Jinping nor Premiere Li Keqiang - who is often dispatched to the site of major disasters - has visited Tianjin yet. Xi on Saturday ordered officials to learn from the "extremely profound" lessons, which have been "paid for with blood."

China, he said, needs greater accountability, better emergency response mechanisms, better implementation of work safety regulations, and careful checks of all possible safety risks.

The full economic toll of the incident has yet to be calculated, but Binhai district vice chief said Friday that 17,000 households and 1,700 businesses had been affected. Binhai accounts for 55% of Tianjin's gross domestic product and posted growth of 15.5% last year, Xinhua reported - twice China's overall growth rate.

Who would bear responsibility for paying for all the damage to business and residential properties remained unclear. China's insurance regulator ordered insurers to prioritize claims from the incident.

Automobiles, information technology, aviation services, petroleum and chemical engineering are among the key sectors represented in Binhai. The centrally planned business, residential and industrial area rose from a swath of fields and small villages in recent years.

Automakers have reported significant disruptions to their activities in Tianjin. The port processes about 40% of China's imported cars, Xinhua said.

Thousands of new cars awaiting shipment to dealerships were burnt to a crisp by Wednesday's massive explosion.

Toyota said 50 members of its staff in the area were injured. Renault alone said it lost about 1,500 vehicles with a value of more than $30 million.

Sun Jiuwen, a professor of regional economy at Renmin University of China, said the immediate effect on Tianjin's economy could be grave in the short term.

"Even if we put aside the direct losses, including casualties, cargoes and infrastructure damage, the tragedy will severely strike the local economy, which heavily relies on the chemical, port and logistics industries," he told China Daily.

published at 12:37 a.m.

[Gigas]

Beginning to look like a space weapon attack.

Rods from god.

This explosion occurred a day after the Chinese devalued the yuan.

First detonation was 3 tonnes of tnt. The second detonation was a 20 ton hit.

Chinese bloggers report black helicopters in the air the day before.

"After looking through the images of the soviet nuclear tests, the new lake in China appears to have been made by a slightly sub surface burst of at least a 5 kiloton nuclear bomb... This was NOT an accident and the fracture pattern around the crater proves a sub ground burst. If it was a sub ground burst, then a small nuclear weapon is the biggest possibility because once a nuke has to push dirt, the blinding flash will not happen. A slightly subsurface detonation would explain why camera sensors did not get strange artifacts. And if it was not a nuke, it was something else incredibly huge, but not a fuel air bomb because fuel air bombs will not leave craters."

http://www.naturalnews.com/050816_Tianjin_explosion_space-based_weapons_military_retaliation.html#



Edit to ad: space otter got gold

[zorgon]

Amid new explosions and fires at site of Chinese blasts, there is confusion over evacuation order

Safety procedure at PEPCON in Henderson Las Vegas

ONE garden hose to put out fires
Instructions: In case of fire... RUN LIKE HELL

True story   You cannot put out a fire of rocket fuel

[ArMaP]

What I find strange in that photo is that those dark containers in the centre and on the left of the photo appear unaffected by the blast, so maybe the blast looks stronger because of the (apparently) weaker containers.

[ArMaP]

"And if it was not a nuke, it was something else incredibly huge, but not a fuel air bomb because fuel air bombs will not leave craters."

A fuel air bomb does not leave a crater?

[Senduko]

What I find strange in that photo is that those dark containers in the centre and on the left of the photo appear unaffected by the blast, so maybe the blast looks stronger because of the (apparently) weaker containers.

Another observation is the lack of scorch marks. not only on the blue containers but the other ones as well.
The blue containers are a mystery tho, they look like they where put there after the blast. Also note that they are smaller compared to the standard containers.

Odd.

[Senduko]

This explosion occurred a day after the Chinese devalued the yuan.

I'm surprised noone made this connection yet, this was my first thought as well. And it does seem to hold some water because
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-11/not-drill-india-russia-and-thailand-prepare-currency-war
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Chinas-currency-devaluation-Thailands-economic-nig-30266475.html
And now we had the bombing in Thailand, might be a coincidence, might be something else entirely.

My gut feeling tells me this has everything to do with the dominant role of the Dollar.

[zorgon]

A fuel air bomb does not leave a crater?

[Senduko]

could someone explain me what happened to these containers?

It looks like they had an explosion inside