China has sent a team of military
chemical experts to the northern city of Tianjin, after explosions left at
least 50 dead, state media report.
The blasts, late on Wednesday
night, ripped through an industrial port area, destroying buildings, shipping
containers and thousands of new cars. It is not known what caused the blasts,
nor whether chemicals have leaked.
More than 3,500
residents are spending the night in temporary shelters. Hundreds are injured,
71 critically.
Rescue teams were ordered to wear protective clothing, it added.
The warehouse that exploded is owned by a company called Ruihai Logistics, which handles toxic chemicals including sodium cyanide and toluene diisocyanate, according to reports.
Rescue teams were ordered to wear protective clothing, it added.
The warehouse that exploded is owned by a company called Ruihai Logistics, which handles toxic chemicals including sodium cyanide and toluene diisocyanate, according to reports.
The People's Daily, the official
newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, reports that rescuers "are
trying to remove all the 700 tons of sodium cyanide" stored at the site.
Hydrogen peroxide had been prepared to detoxify the chemical, the paper says.
State news agency Xinhua reports that
rescue workers are "racing against the clock to save the injured and
contain fires", 24 hours after the massive blasts at a warehouse in the
Binhai New Area.
Many of the wounded had glass or shrapnel cuts, skull
injuries or fractures,
Wang Siaojie of Teda Hospital said. More
than 200 experts in chemical materials from the Chinese army have arrived in Tianjin .
Their first task was to test the air for toxic gases, Xinhua said.
The Tianjin Port Group Company said dozens of its employees were
unaccounted for, according to Xinhua.
Firefighters were already at the
scene when the explosions took place.
They had been called to reports of
a container fire, state media said. At least 17 firefighters are among the dead.
The two successive explosions, at 23:30 local time on Wednesday
(15:30 GMT), caused a fireball visible from space and a blast wind that broke
windows several kilometers away.
A large area of the port was
devastated. Shipping containers were left buckled, bent and toppled on top of each other like toy bricks.
Row upon row of new cars were
reduced to blackened husks.
Almost 10,000 vehicles were
ruined, according to Chinese media, with Renaults and Volkswagens the worst
affected.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-33915683
Vocabularies
1. fractures 骨折
2. sodium 鈉
3. cyanide 氰化物
4. toluene 甲苯
5. diisocyanate 二異氰酸酯
6. peroxide 過氧化
7. detoxify 解毒
8. buckled 扣
9. toppled 扳倒
10. husks 皮
5W1H
What – A terrible explosion in Tianjin
Who – Residents in Tianjin
When – August12, 2015
Where – Tianjin, China
Why – Some chemical materials
cause an explosion.
How - Helped by rescue teams and
chemical experts
I think it is really a catastrophe. It's like our explosion in Kaohsiung, but the difference is that there were 700 tons of toxic chemicals in Tianjin. Because of this reason, it was hard for rescue teams to extinguish the fire. I hope everything can be all right.
回覆刪除It is really a serious disaster to Tianjin. Because of 700 tons of sodium cyanide, so many victims injured and died in this incident. I wish that everything and everyone can recover and be fine.
回覆刪除