Fires continue to rage in Tianjin after blasts rocked the city, leaving at least 50 people dead and hundreds injured

China blasts: fireball from Tianjin explosions kills at least 50 – latest updates 天津港大爆炸 Read more

Dozens of people are feared dead and fires are still raging after a warehouse filled with “dangerous chemicals” exploded in the Chinese city of Tianjin, sending a mushroom cloud into the air.

Tianjin, a port city of about 14 million residents, was rocked by a series of devastating explosions about 11.30pm on Wednesday night (4.30pm GMT, 1.30am AEST), according to witnesses and state media reports.

So far Chinese authorities have confirmed 50 deaths, including at least 12 firefighters, and say 701 people have been admitted to hospital, of whom 71 have “severe” injuries. Those numbers are expected to rise.

“It was like the catastrophic scene in Hollywood movies,” one witness was quoted as saying by Xinhua, China’s official news agency.

Chen Bingzhi, who lives about 4km from the explosion site, told the Guardian: “It felt like a earthquake. The whole building was shaking. I live on the fifth floor and all the windows are broken.”

Firefighters described hellish scenes near the disaster site. “It’s all black and smog, I can’t see anything inside,” one told Xinhua.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dense smoke rises from the fire caused by blasts in a warehouse at the Binhai New Area in Tianjin, China Photograph: Imaginechina/Corbis

The blasts – so violent they sent vehicles and debris flying into the air and rattled homes for miles around – were caused by a shipment of “dangerous chemicals”, state media reported.

As dawn broke over Tianjin, which is a major base for China’s petrochemical and shipping industries, the extent of the destruction became clear.

Drone footage showed fires raging inside the disaster zone and giant plumes of black smoke bellowing into the air.

Photographs of the destruction appeared to have been taken straight from a warzone, not a bustling port city just 160km from Beijing.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest China blasts aftermath: Drone footage shows devastation in Tianjin. Link to video

They showed firefighters picking their way past crumpled and charred vehicles; terrified residents camped out on the streets; tower blocks with their windows blown out by the strength of the blast.

One image showed a group of rescue workers crowded around what appeared to be the corpse of a victim, splayed out on a ladder. Another photograph posted on Chinese social media appeared to show a metal car wheel that had been partially melted by the inferno.

Relatives of victims and the missing flocked to local hospitals where doctors described being overwhelmed by the walking wounded.

“The hospital cannot count how many patients we have received – there are too many of them and many of them have burn injuries,” said a doctor at one of the city’s hospital, who had been called back from a conference in Beijing to treat the wounded.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Smoke rises amid mangled wreckage at the site of a series of explosions in Tianjin. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images

Lu Yun, the director of one hospital, told Xinhua his doctors had treated at least 150 people who had been injured by glass or stones. Some were in a serious condition, he said.

At Tianjin’s Teda hospital, just a few blocks from the disaster scene, an outdoor field hospital was set up to cope with the influx of patients. Black smoke could still be seen rising into the sky and scores of volunteers were on hand outside with deliveries of stacks of bottled water.

Residents of buildings between the hospital and the blast site could be seen outside their homes carrying packed bags.

Nearby, virtually all of the north-facing windows on the 30-storey Vantone Central Park compound had been smashed. Shards of glass littered the ground outside the apartments.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Smoke billows behind rows of burnt out cars at the site of a series of explosions in Tianjin, northern China. Photograph: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images

A police officer ordered the Guardian to leave the hospital grounds.

Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, “urged all-out efforts to save the injured and minimize casualties”. Li Keqiang, the prime minister, gave orders for authorities “to intensify search and rescue”.



After initial reports of a fire in Tianjin’s Binhai district, the city’s fire department dispatched 12 teams to the scene at around 10.50pm on Wednesday.

Forty minutes later, at 11.30pm, explosions tore through the area. Nine more teams of firefighters were sent to the area to battle the blaze and locate their colleagues.

Hu Xiaoliang, a 32-year-old truck driver, said he had been napping under his vehicle at the time of the explosions. The force of the blast “catapulted” him away from beneath the truck, he claimed.

“I was sleeping under my truck when the first blast occurred. It literally threw me out of the trunk. The second blast was bigger, flames came and now my truck is all ashes.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest CCTV shows moment of explosion in Tianjin

The biggest blasts, which took place within 30 seconds of each other, were so powerful they registered at a nearby earthquake monitoring centre.

The first blast was equal in strength to the detonation of three tons of TNT, while the second was the equivalent of 21 tons of the explosive, said the China Earthquake Networks Centre.

On Thursday, as fire teams struggled to bring the fire under control details emerged of Ruihai logistics, the company that owned the warehouse at the centre of the disaster.

Xinhua said the company, founded in 2011, was involved in the “storage, transfer, distribution and customs declaration of dangerous chemicals”.

“Executives of the company have been controlled,” Xinhua said, suggesting its owners had been detained by police.

The government has not yet commented on what caused the blast, but if it is a safety lapse in the handling of dangerous shipments, it would be the latest in a long line of grim accidents.

Poor safety standards and widespread corruption contribute to hundreds of deaths in China’s poorly regulated private mines each year, and in other industrial accidents.

An explosion at a fireworks warehouse in July killed 15 people, and last year dozens died in a blast at a car parts factory in Shanghai.

Additional reporting by Luna Lin

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