(Eagle News) — The death toll in the deadly chemical blasts in area in the northeastern Chinese port of Tianjin has climbed to 104, including at least 21 firefighters, according to the Chinese state media .
The Tianjin municipal government also said that around 720 others were admitted to hospitals.
Small-scale blasts broke out at around 11:40 Saturday (Aug. 15) in Binhai New Area, where the blasts occurred at hazardous chemicals warehouse on Wednesday night.
The blasts, which occurred at around 23:30, sent fireballs into the night sky and blew out windows in buildings several kilometers away.
Many families of the firefighters first sent to inspect the blast site are also now demanding answers about their loved ones who have failed to return home and are now missing, reported the Chinese state media on Sunday, Aug. 16.
Waiting outside a room at the Meihua Hotel where the press conference was taking place, the relatives of the missing firefighters said they still had no news about their loved ones, and demanded officials give them information, reported Chinese state television.
“If our children are still trapped in there, they should rescue them immediately. They should help find our children. We don’t want to lose them. They are still young,” Wang Liying, mother of a 19-year-old firefighter reported missing, was quoted by the China Central Television (CCTV) as saying.
“We haven’t heard anything about the first batches of firefighters. There has been no information. We are here looking for answers,” said Yang Chunmin, whose 19-year-old brother remains missing.
“We want to see them, dead or alive. We are all very anxious. They keep us waiting, but I don’t think I can wait any longer. It’s my younger brother we are talking about,” said Xue Tao, brother of a missing firefighter, as quoted by CCTV.
Reuters said that Chinese officials have denied that there had been an order to evacuate residents from an area near the site of a huge chemical explosion on Saturday (August 15). This was just hours after state media said residents who had taken refuge in a school near the site of the blast had been evacuated.
The evacuation came as a fire broke out again at the site of Wednesday’s (August 12) blasts which killed dozens in an industrial zone in the northeastern port of Tianjin, a warehouse specially designed to store dangerous chemicals, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Evacuees were advised to wear long trousers and face masks as they “evacuated in an orderly fashion”, according to a post on the official microblog of the Tianjin branch of the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China. The streets appeared calm.
Gong Jiansheng, a district official, told reporters there had been no evacuation.
“Today I saw hyped up information saying that people within two kilometers of where the event happened would be evacuated, I saw that from roughly eleven o’clock on there was a string of these announcements, we also noticed this information. We immediately found out the situation with the emergency teams at the scene. This information is not accurate, there are no plans to evacuate people. At present there are no plans to evacuate people,” Gong said.
In one piece of encouraging news, a 50-year-old man was rescued 50 meters away from the blast zone, Xinhua said. The man was suffering from a burnt respiratory tract but was in a stable condition after surviving three days in a shipping container, the official China Central Television (CCTV) and Xinhua said.
But officials continued to dodge questions concerning the fate of the first group of firefighters who went in to tackle the blaze. Relatives of some of those firefighters attempted to break into a news conference earlier in the day saying they still hadn’t been told anything about the status of their loved ones.
According to reports in domestic media which have since been deleted, one relative was quoted as saying that none of the family members of her relative’s 25-strong squad had received any information about what happened to them.
When a similar question was raised during the news conference, officials tried to dodge it.
“The Tianjin port public security bureau fire brigade detachment is not managed by the Tianjin municipal public security fire brigade,” said Zhou Tian, who is the head of the Tianjin Municipal fire brigade.
Zhou remained silent when pushed further by a journalist, who pointed out that it has so far been impossible to reach the Tianjin Port Authorities, who are responsible for them.
District official Gong said they would try and get a response from the port.
Chinese state television meanwhile on Saturday showed footage of firefighters standing over the body of their fallen comrade in Tianjin, removing their helmets, and bowing four times before carrying the body away.
China on Friday (August 18) defended fire fighters who initially hosed water on a blaze in a warehouse storing volatile chemicals, a response foreign experts said could have contributed to the explosions.
Chinese police confirmed for the first time the presence of deadly sodium cyanide at the site of the blast that killed 85 people, state media said, as a series of new, small explosions were heard and small fires broke out.
Police confirmed the presence of the chemical, fatal when ingested or inhaled, “roughly east of the blast site”, the state-run Beijing News said.
It did not say how much had been found or how great a risk it posed but residents expressed concern about the air and water. (with reports from China Central Television News and Reuters)