Aerial pictures of devastating explosion in China's Tianjin
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.- Another man demanded information from a government official. "We've been here for three days, and we've not had one piece of information," he said.
- Outside the Mayfair Hotel where the authorities hold regular news conferences, a woman pleaded for information on her husband. "(They) have said nothing. We know nothing," the woman said. "We've been told nothing."
- 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.
- The public has raised concerns whether firefighters were put into harm's way in the initial response to the fire and whether the hazardous material — including compounds combustible on contact with water — was properly taken into account in the way
- The death toll includes at least 21 firefighters — making the disaster the deadliest for Chinese firefighters in more than six decades. About 1,000 firefighters responded to the disaster, and 85 of them remained unaccounted for on Sunday.
- Angry relatives of the missing firefighters and local residents whose homes are destroyed by the blasts showed up at a government news conference Sunday to demand information and accountability.
- Sodium cyanide is a toxic chemical that can form a flammable gas upon contact with water. Earlier state media reports said the warehouse was storing 700 tons of the chemical — 70 times more than it should have been holding at one time.
- By Sunday, authorities confirmed there were "several hundred" tons of the toxic chemical sodium cyanide on the site at the time of the blasts, although they said there have not been any devastating leaks.
- 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
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.
Aerial pictures of devastating explosion in China's Tianjin
Next Story
