The area of the explosion is like Freeport is to Houston. There are apartment buildings there but nothing like if it was right in the city.
17 is confirmed dead at the time of the announcement. Nobody is saying 17 is the eventual number. We all expect the number to rise at some point. But they first need to find proof (body, etc) that the person is dead before they can increase the number.
Yeah I looked at the city on Google Maps since I posted and I found the place where all of the Renault cars were burned by the explosion, the whole area was overwhelmingly industrial in nature, not really any houses and not that many apartment complexes.
According to BBC, the nearest apartment complex to the explosion had most of its windows shattered but it's not on fire or crumbling etc, so most likely there's just injuries from the glass there. Considering the explosion happened at midnight in a pretty much purely industrial area, there might not be that many non firefighter in that area at the time of explosion.
I've been to this area of Tianjin. Tons of industry in Tianjin in general and in this specific area area, they label it a 'tech park'. State reports only <20 deaths and 200+ injuries which at first sounds not believable when considering Tianjin's population density. But in this area, the industry/companies are kind of more isolated, far apart, and away from residential, so I'm not sure if it's untrue.
Hope they share the detailed and accurate investigative report. Case studies like these are important in safety training in industrial settings so that accidents like these (due to same causes) can be avoided in the future.
Unfortunately as expected the death toll is climbing. On the news this morning they reported 44 dead with 52 critically injured. There are still several missing but it will take a while to sort this out.
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No kidding. The reports I saw from China said that there was a large explosion followed by a gigantic one. From that video, it appears that there were several explosions, 3 or 4, before the climatic one. Simply staggering. WTF did they have stored there that could go up like that? Has the rest of the world learned nothing from the Texas City Disaster? You have to feel for the people. Damn. edit: I meant the Texas City Disaster and changed it.
At least 700 tons of Sodium Cyannide and other poisonous chemical detected at the blast site.... A team of 217 nuclear and biochemical materials specialists from the Chinese military had travelled to Tianjin to inspect the site. Umm yeah. GTFO.
