The morning after yesterday’s devastating blasts in Tianjin, China, the rest of the world is still unsure of what to make of the destruction reported by the Chinese government. According to official sources, more than 40 people have died till now, and hundreds more have been injured in the worst industrial blast in decades. Many believe that the strict control by Chinese authorities on the media has curtailed the massive numbers of casualties in the unfortunate incident.
According to Chinese media, the blast occurred in a warehouse containing “dangerous chemical goods”. There was an initial blast that immediately sent the place to flames and then it instigated a massive one later on that rocked the locality for miles. It is rare that an explosion of this magnitude (apart from nuclear tests) is caught on camera, and it created mass-level panic and destruction in the surroundings.
Horrendous pictures of the disaster have since surfaced the internet that have shown the level of damage faced by the port city. Such was the blast that the fire was spread by a large radius and efforts to contain them may have lost more lives than ones lost in the immediate aftermath. The potential damage from this catastrophe is believed to be in hundreds of millions of dollars. This shows a dark aspect of the lax safety regulations in the world’s most heavily industrialized nation. The explosive might have been TNT itself, but there are no confirmed reports.
Experts believe that the blast’s intensity indicated that the first explosion was worth around 2 tonnes of explosive while the second mega blast will be close to 21 tonnes (BBC). Such was the enormity of the explosions that they were observable from the space stations too. See more these images and let’s try to learn what happens if engineering safety procedures aren’t applied rigorously.
More than a hundred fire engines have reached the place yet it still has some fires raging on. As a result of the blast, the buildings shook furiously, and many residents are now afraid to go back due to the large cracks that have appeared in their walls and roofs. Tianjin is a big city home to more than 15 million people. It is a major port and industrial area of China, and now a large percentage of the population is now affected by the deadly blasts.
Where is your evidence that safety bewas ignored? You are supposed to engineering reporters, surely you should present some evidence for your accusations?
I live in China. Trust me, there is basically zero public safety emphasis here.