Armed police are evacuating everyone within 3km of the Tianjin blast site as seven to eight explosions raised fears of yet more casualties on Saturday, Beijing News has reported.
Hundreds of evacuees
housed at a temporary shelter in a nearby primary school for the homeless were also being moved away, Beijing News reported.
Fires broke out at 11.40am on Saturday at the Tianjin blast site according to state media outlet Xinhua. Thick smoke and seven to eight blasts from at least three separate locations were reported to have been heard at the scene.
At 11am police saying they were acting on “orders from higher authorities” began instructing people within 2km of the epicentre to be promptly evacuated, said the Beijing News. “No people or vehicle allowed within the area” the police officer reportedly said.
According to the same report, a member of the People’s Armed Police told the Beijing News reporter that sodium cyanide had been discovered in the warehouse contents. Experts are now handling the chemical while the evacuation continues.
Relatives of missing firefighters interrupted a media conference in the northern Chinese city this morning as they demanded more information about the devastating blasts, according to a weibo post from the Global Times newspaper.
“Why aren’t the names of the contract firefighters on the public list of dead/missing, but the regular firefighters are,” one woman demanded to know according to another weibo post from the Southern People’s Weekly.
“No one with family in the number 5 team has received anything” the woman said, complaining about the paucity of information.
“They’re only 18, 19 years old” the woman is reported to have said. “The oldest is only 20 years old. They’re only children. They’re only youths!” she said.
In attempting to calm the woman, a police representative at the media conference said the deaths of police officers had also not been reported. “Not a single police officer death has been reported,” the police officer said. “Everyone from our whole police station is gone.”
Officials announced at the same media conference that the number of dead had risen to 85 as of Friday night. Acccording to the officials, 21 of the 85 blast victims were firefighters.
The identities of five deceased firefighters were revealed on Friday – the youngest just 21 years old. Authorities are saying its the most casualties firefighters have received since the founding of modern china in 1949.
A rare glimmer of hope came yesterday when Chinese rescue teams located a 19-year-old firefighter – named as Zhou Ti – at the site of the blast more than 30 hours after the blast occurred.
In total, 721 people have been hospitalised. including 25 in critical condition, 33 people in intensive care, and 40 people have been discharged according to a Xinhua report of the media conference.
A Beijing News reporter close to the blast site on Saturday morning said firefighters were still battling fires there and that the sounds of explosions could be heard from time to time.
National broadcaster CCTV cut short coverage of a media conference in Tianjin on Friday after reporters asked why residential areas were so close to the blast.
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