Chinese rescuers pull firefighter (19) from explosion rubble

Smoke was still billowing from the site of two devastating explosions in the northeastern Chinese port of Tianjin early on Friday, as relatives continued to search for loved ones and chemical experts sought to determine what caused the huge blasts.

The air at the site still smelt bad and rescue workers were issued with upgraded facemasks to deal with toxic fumes. While the site has been sealed off, the smoke rises high in the sky and there was an explosion mid-morning.

The death toll had risen to 55 by mid-morning and 701 had been hospitalised, including 71 critically ill, according to rescue headquarters. Ten firemen have been confirmed dead and 13 are missing, while scores are in hospital.

Search teams found a 19-year-old firefighter Zhou Ti in the rubble, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported, badly injured but alive. Dozens of employees of the Tianjin Port Group Company were still unaccounted for and the search was ongoing.

Families living in the apartment building near to the site were told they could not move back to their homes but would have to stay in temporary accommodation, although they were allowed back to pick up essential items.

One woman told local media that her home had been broken into and items had been stolen, while another said she would be seeking compensation.

Chemical experts were at the scene trying to establish the best way to stop the fires.

Gao Huaiyou, deputy head of the safety supervision bureau, told a news conference that the warehouse where the explosion took place was a temporary storage area, which was different from a fixed storage area.

“All the goods in the containers were stored there temporarily and were then due to be carried away after clearing customs. So there were different quantities and types of material there all the time.

“Secondly, the office of the warehouse was seriously damaged, so we can’t get information about the type and quantity from their records. Thirdly, the information provided by the person in charge and the management personnel were not the same,” said Gao.

At the TEDA No.2 Primary School, volunteers were looking after some 1,500 local residents who were being temporarily housed there. Local residents also gave out bottled water, snacks and face-masks near the temporary camps.

There are concerns about the safety of the air and many people are wearing facemasks.

“We felt so upset after we heard about the explosion. Helping to take care of them is the only thing we can do,” Duo Mingzhu, who was at the school with her husband, told Xinhua.

Local residents are afraid of rain, which was expected in the afternoon, as they fear it could react with chemicals such as sodium cyanide and cause another explosion. Wang Lianqing, a senior engineer from environmental science academy in Tianjin, said that sodium cyanide was a water-soluble substance, but that site has been sealed and normal rain would not produce any dangerous reactions.

Some safety experts have questioned the decision by the first firefighters on the scene to use water to put out a chemical fire in a facility known to house materials such as calcium carbide, which reacts explosively with water.

"We knew there was calcium carbide inside but we didn't know whether it had already exploded," said Lei Jinde, a spokesman for the Chinese fire services.

“At that point no one knew, it wasn’t that the fire fighters were stupid,” Lei told ThePaper.cn, adding that it was a large warehouse and they didn’t know the exact location of the calcium carbide.