generalspeaking

Potential Becomes Reality

"Many cases of fraudulent declarations of dangerous cargo from China have been reported, resulting in frequent fires and the increased risk of casualties, vessel damage, and heavy pollution. For instance, cargo declared as plastic toys could in fact be fireworks; loading these containers close to the engine room could be catastrophic."
Maritime Transport Working Group

"It doesn’t surprise me because safety oversight in China is really lax."
"Anything can be shipped and stored safely as long as appropriate standards are in place [but those standards have to be followed]."
Bob Richards, former deputy associate administrator, Hazardous Materials Transportation Safety Program, U.S. Department of Transportation

"There were 2,000 or 3,000 people living in that neighbourhood, and they could have been notified earlier to evacuate."
Wang Dong, 55, injured taxi driver 

Tianjin is a port city, the 10th busiest in the world. It is a 90-minute drive from Beijing. Ruihai Logistics is a company licensed to store hazardous chemicals located at the port, and on Wednesday morning into Thursday it was the localation of two powerfully explosive blasts. The National Earthquake Bureau classified the first blast as the equivalent of three tonnes of TNT, and the following one at 21 tonnes.

Those blasts resulted in gigantic fireballs rolling through a nearby parking lot holding thousands of new cars, and they were well barbecued. Zhang Siyi, a resident whose home is several kilometres from the site of the explosions described her immediate reaction to what she thought was an earthquake: "Only once I was outside did I realize it was an explosion. There was the huge fireball in the sky with thick clouds."

Over a thousand firefighters were dispatched to the industrial zone in response to the explosion in Tianjin at the port which handles vast amounts of metal ore, coal, steel, cars and crude oil. Of the 50 people that authorities say were killed, a dozen were firefighters who had responded to do their duty to fight fire at Ruihai International Logistics. According to the Tianjin Tanggu Environmental Monitoring Station, the company stored toxic industrial chemicals.

Sodium cyanide, toluene diisocyanate and calcium carbide were stored at the facility. The company was licensed to handle highly combustible substances like liquefied natural gas. Sodium cyanide is a compound used in mining and is particularly toxic, and toluene diisocyanate is used in the manufacture of polyurethane products, known as a carcinogen and also highly explosive. So this company had official licenses to store in the same facility, natural gas and combustible chemicals.

If that doesn't represent a formula for disaster-in-the-making, what does? But wait; officials in Tianjin seemed aware of the risks. They had recently dispatched officials with the Administration of Work Safety to meet with local chemical companies to urge that they ensure the safety of the substances in their care given the summer weather inclusive of "extreme heat, high humidity and heavy rain", information available on the agency's website, dated August 6.

Not to worry: a senior environmental official, Wen Wurui, has stated that emission readings in the city had dropped to safe levels following the blasts. Of course, chemical residues may now leak into area groundwater. And of course, it is highly regrettable that a reported 50 people lost their lives [a figure that is disputed, since there were migrants working on the dock unaccounted for, among others] and a mere 700 people injured, several hundred of them quite seriously.

Charred remains of a warehouse and new cars. Photo credit: AP/Ng Han Guan

Labels: Chemicals, China, Explosion

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, August 15, 2015