Explosion in Tianjin

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**Ensis Ferrae**

Wow... I only hope that this wasn't all that close to the major city centers and keeps casualties as low as possible...

**Manchu**

Frazzled wrote:
They might just push the old "what explosion?"

People's Daily has already reported on it.

**Dark Apostle 666**

I suspect that exactly what happened won't ever be known - I imagine most of the evidence was destroyed by the blast.
Looks like there's 17 confirmed deaths so far, according to the BBC's latest.

**djones520**

Dark Apostle 666 wrote:
I suspect that exactly what happened won't ever be known - I imagine most of the evidence was destroyed by the blast.
Looks like there's 17 confirmed deaths so far, according to the BBC's latest.

If this was due to government mishandling, no one will ever know what happened. China is still one of the masters at making it seem like they can do know wrong.

**Bromsy**

And yet another zombie apocalypse was stopped before it could start.

On a serious note, jeebus.

**jhe90**

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3195477/Fifty-people-injured-enormous-blast-explosives-shipment-hits-Chinese-city.html

The damage is enormous, every window for a wide radias is broken, there BBC footage just shows how much damage was done and it was more than 21 tons im sure. It blew out every window for a wide area, area effected goes back several km according to report in some form or another

**Frazzled**

NPR is now saying over 40 dead.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/12/431961110/explosion-in-china-kills-7-and-injures-hundreds-according-to-state-media

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

If this was down to obvious government mishandling the BBC reporters would not be allowed to wander around the area after the fact

eye witnesses are reporting an initial small(er) explosion and then a much, much bigger one a few minutes later

so while the initial explosion may well have been some sort of explosives (commercial, military or firework) the second one is almost certainly down to fire/heat reaching a lot of something that could go bang which sounds much more like chemical/petrol/etc storage tanks/barrels etc or similar

**Jihadin**

Felt the blast wave through the TV
Then I notice the black sticks poking up were buildings.......

**Dreadwinter**

Holy crap, somebody messed up big time. Doubt they will be around to pay for it though.....

**AndrewGPaul**

from the BBC:

"The massive explosions in China's northern city of Tianjin are now known to have killed at least 50 people.
More than 700 have been injured and hospitals are struggling to cope with the number of casualties.
The blasts, at a warehouse storing toxic chemicals, destroyed tower blocks and burned out thousands of cars. The fireball could be seen from space.
Twelve firefighters are among those who lost their lives; 36 of their colleagues are still missing."

Some photos here, including the satellite image:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-33844084

**kronk**

AndrewGPaul wrote:

The blasts, at a warehouse storing toxic chemicals,

That would do it.

I'm sorry for their losses.

**Skinnereal**

I expect we'll be hearing about those containers for some time yet.
Also, since "Tianjin, home to some 15 million people" is just less than 1/4 the population of the UK, that's a lot of people affected. From the map, it is Beijing's main port.

**Steve steveson**

Yep. Looks like it is the main port for a large area of China. And it looks like it has made a big mess of a big area. Hopefully not too many people were hurt with it being in the port. I would guess the economic consequences are going to be much worse for the people of the city than the immediate effect. Hopefully, if the somewhat lax attitude to safety is the cause, this will force the Chinese government to do something.

Skinnereal wrote:
Also, since "Tianjin, home to some 15 million people" is just less than 1/4 the population of the UK

American and Chinese cities confuse me. Chinese cities are mindbogglingly large. Some place you have never heard of has a population twice that of London. American cities are bizarrely small. Only 10 cities with populations bigger than 1 million (the UK has 5. Or 4 depending on how you count it), and cities I have heard of with populations less than the town I am from.

**easysauce**

I feel really bad for those people, not too far from my in laws port city, im sure the fallout from the fires is only going to make this worse. I hope china uses the opportunity to show it can clean up and make things right again in the area.

LordofHats wrote:
This is what China gets for grovelling at the feet of Michael Bay in the last Transformers movie.

karma man.

too soon man.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Desubot wrote:
Oh man thats some crazy stuff.

Wonder what they were doing with all that explosives.

various things likely, the Canadian Halifax explosion was the largest non nuclear one for quite some time, considering how much larger china is then canuckistan a very small fraction of their explosives/flammables could very well surpass what happened in Halifax.

**Smacks**

This reminds me strongly of The Buncefield fire back in 2005. The physics are quite interesting, this page describes the type of explosion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermobaric_weapon

What's funny is this was right in a "sort of" suburb of greater London. I remember my dad commenting "They make all this fuss about terrorists, and they didn't tell us they had one of those things right in Hemel Hempstead, that could go off like an atomic bomb."

**Jihadin**

I saw a fuel hauler blow up. Thought that was pretty bad but not to this scale. They say it was a warehouse full of toxic chemicals. Good chunk of deaths from what I have heard is fire fighters

**Frazzled**

Looks almost on the order of the Texas City explosion where an entire freighter full of ammonium nitrate went boom. It threw the anchor, yes THE ANCHOR, miles away.

**kronk**

It reminds me of the explosion at the factory that processed the fuel for the space shuttle. While I don't recall what started the fire, the root cause for the catastrophic explosion was the stockpiling of product after the Columbia tragedy when the shuttle program was on hold. There was a fire that grew until it got to the storage warehouse.

The shockwave on this is incredible. Fortunately, it was in a remote area. They were smart enough to build the plant away from people. I can't imagine something like this at such a busy port like Tianjin. It must have been horrible.

**Smacks**

Frazzled wrote:
Looks almost on the order of the Texas City explosion where an entire freighter full of ammonium nitrate went boom. It threw the anchor, yes THE ANCHOR, miles away.

Wasn't that kind of a long time ago Frazz? Like back when old spice was still new

**AndrewGPaul**

Frazzled wrote:
Looks almost on the order of the Texas City explosion where an entire freighter full of ammonium nitrate went boom. It threw the anchor, yes THE ANCHOR, miles away.

According to Wikipedia, the Texas City explosion was roughly 3kT. The BBC says this explosion was 21T; 140 times less.

**Frazzled**

Well I was allowing for Texas vs. non-Texas. Of course its bigger in Texas!

**easysauce**

Frazzled wrote:
Well I was allowing for Texas vs. non-Texas. Of course its bigger in Texas!

everything's big in canada, we are just too polite to mention it normally, just compare our footballs!

to be fair the halifax explosion was also about 3 kilotonnes of TNT, so ill happily count that as a tie.

**Dreadclaw69**

Current theory;
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-33844084

"Officials insist it is not yet clear what triggered the two blasts, about 30 seconds apart.
Before the explosions, many firefighters were already at the scene trying to control a blaze, AFP reports.
There have been suggestions that water sprayed on some of the chemicals could have led to the blasts.
Calcium carbide, known to be at the site, reacts with water to create the highly explosive acetylene.
Chemical experts suggest an acetylene blast could then have detonated ammonium nitrate for a much larger blast."

**the Signless**

This is not being suppressed in China as I got to watch reports of it in the news. China really need to get it into its heads that safety concerns are not something that you can just skip over.

Steve steveson wrote:
Skinnereal wrote:
Also, since "Tianjin, home to some 15 million people" is just less than 1/4 the population of the UK

American and Chinese cities confuse me. Chinese cities are mindbogglingly large. Some place you have never heard of has a population twice that of London. American cities are bizarrely small. Only 10 cities with populations bigger than 1 million (the UK has 5. Or 4 depending on how you count it), and cities I have heard of with populations less than the town I am from.

This is because we only got the whole industrialised society concept within the last one hundred years and our geography (stupid Gobi desert) prevents us from spreading out evenly over the land. We went from most of the population being peasants living under various warlords to a nation bent on outdoing those foreign capitalists with the help of the Soviet Union. Factories and universities attracted people from the countryside into our few existing cities, causing a rapid rise in population. Unlike modern China, families were encouraged to have many children to help with industry and farming, causing the population to soar. Since then, modern commodities and services tend to focus on these populated regions, making it hard for new cities to begin. The social mindset of the Han people (China's dominant ethnic group) encourages conformity and group interaction, meaning that people are not as adverse to living in close quarters as some other countries.

**reds8n**

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/21/chinese-authorities-investigate-mass-fish-death-near-tianjin-explosion-site

Chinese authorities have denied that the deaths of thousands of fish near the scene of a catastrophic industrial disaster are linked to last week’s chemical explosions in Tianjin which killed at least 114 people.

Photographs showing the surface of the River Hai coated in dead sticklebacks spread on social media sites on Thursday, adding to fears that military clean up teams had failed to prevent chemicals leaking out of the blast site.

Authorities say around 40 types of chemicals were being stored at the warehouse at the centre of the explosions including ammonium nitrate and large quantities of sodium cyanide.

However, Xinhua, China’s official news agency, said no toxic levels of cyanide had been found in the river during tests on Thursday afternoon. The fish were found around 6km from the blast site.

Deng Xiaowen, the head of Tianjin’s environment monitoring centre, vowed to investigate the fish deaths but claimed “it was not uncommon for fish to die en masse in local rivers during summer, due to poor water quality.”

“When the temperature rises, oxygen will evaporate and fish may die of hypoxia,” he was quoted as saying by the Global Times.

Once the precise cause of the die-off was established it would be announced to society “immediately,” Deng added.

Zhang Yunli, the head of a fishing association in Tianjin, told the Global Times the deaths could be the result of a “change in water’s salinity, which happens every year.”

A military official claimed the fish – which he named as the stickleback or tiddler - were “very sensitive to the environment”.

One week after the disaster, military teams are still struggling to decontaminate the area.

The site has been surrounded with “cofferdam” barriers and drains have been filled with cement, in an attempt at stopping contaminated water seeping out into the sea, according to Xinhua.

Wen Wurui, Tianjin’s environmental chief, denied that the spilled chemicals would “significantly influence human health” but admitted many challenges remained.

“We can’t say when the cleanup work in the blast center will be finished,” he told state media.