(Courtesy China Central Television news) — Thousands of officials, firefighters, policemen and locals mourned the victims of the massive Tianjin warehouse blasts at the accident site in north China’s port city of Tianjin on Tuesday.
All the mourners held a moment of silence, and bowed to pay respect to their loved ones in a service ceremony.
The death toll of the blasts has climbed to 114 including 39 firefighters, a municipal publicity official told a press conference on Monday.
The identities of 54 bodies have been confirmed, including 16 firefighters from the fire brigade of public security, 23 firefighters from Tianjin Municipal Fire Brigade, five policemen, 10 other persons, and 60 unidentified people.
Another 70 other people are still missing.
A total of 698 injured people have been sent to hospitals, including 20 in critical condition and 37 under intensive care, according to the official.
China’s Fire Authorities on Monday sent experts to carry out assessment work at the site of the warehouse blast that rocked north China’s port city of Tianjin last Wednesday.
The assessment, within a radius of three kilometers around the blast site’s core area, will provide scientific measures to deal with risky burning points and dispose of hazardous chemicals.
Smoke, burnt containers, chemical residue, damaged buildings and vehicles can be seen at the site, where a big pit was caused by the explosions.
An expert said the work team will follow three principles when carrying out the assessment work at the site.
“First, we can’t move containers. Second, we can’t use water-type or foam-type extinguishers, as hazardous chemicals easily burn when meeting water or foam. Third, if it rains this afternoon, we will withdraw immediately and work out a new plan to re-enter. (The) priority is to search for the missing,” said the expert.
The main tasks of the rescue work have changed to searching for missing people, disposing of hazardous chemicals and preventing environmental pollution, according to the Fire Department of China’s Ministry of Public Security.
“We will later deal with 18,000 containers, of which 16,000 are empty, while over 2,000 contain dangerous chemicals,” said Niu Yueguang, deputy chief of the Fire Department of the Ministry of Public Security.
