BEIJING — The mayor of the northern Chinese city where huge explosions killed more than 100 people last week took responsibility for the disaster on Wednesday, as the authorities sought to contain growing public anger about the accident. Mounting evidence has suggested that political malfeasance and rampant safety violations played significant roles in the accident.

“I bear unshirkable responsibility for this accident as head of the city,” said Huang Xingguo, the mayor and acting Communist Party secretary of the metropolis, Tianjin, in his first news conference since the blasts at a chemical warehouse on Aug. 12. The authorities have said that the explosions killed 114 people and injured 674, and that more than 17,000 homes were damaged. Displaced residents have protested for days in Tianjin to demand that the government buy back their homes, which they say are now worthless.

The mayor’s televised mea culpa appeared to signal a shift in the authorities’ response to the political fallout from the disaster. After days of official silence, the government has begun releasing information about the owners of the warehouse company, Rui Hai International Logistics, including their admission of corruption, in an effort to quash public accusations of a cover-up.

On Wednesday, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported that two major shareholders in Rui Hai had admitted to using their political connections to gain government approvals for the site, despite clear violations of rules prohibiting the storage of hazardous chemicals within 3,200 feet of residential areas.