Week 5 - 天津爆炸

12 firefighters among 50 dead in Chinese port city explosions

Hannah Gardner, Special for USA TODAY 4:09 p.m. EDT August 13, 2015

BEIJING — The death toll in twin warehouse blasts in China rose to at least 50 people Thursday, including 12 firefighters, state media reported.

China's official Xinhua news agency said the two massive explosions that ripped through a warehouse facility in one of the world's busiest ports in the city of Tianjin injured 700 people. About 71 people were hospitalized in critical condition.

According to Wang Xiaojie, head of the emergency department of Teda Hospital, many patients had glass or shrapnel cuts, or skull injuries and fractures, Xinhua reported. Tianjin, with a population of 15 million, is located about 90 miles southeast of Beijing.

Residents posted photos of blown out windows and doors on social media. Videos posted the night before showed a huge fire ball surging into the sky and individual explosions like fireworks going off around it.

“Tianjin looks like the end of the world has come this morning," resident Wang Kun said Thursday. "It’s like what you see in Hollywood blockbusters,” he said.

A Weibo user with the name Dawanzi said the area looked like a war zone. "The explosions, the putrid air, dead bodies everywhere, people running around and crying."

Weibo is similar to Twitter, which is blocked on mainland China.

The scale of the destruction in the area immediately around the blast sites and the size of the fire lead many on Weibo to believe the death toll could climb higher.

People as far away as Beijing began to don face masks in case the explosion released toxic chemicals into the air.

The first blast, which occurred around 11:30 p.m. local time Wednesday night, was equivalent to that caused by 3 tons of TNT.

The second explosion, triggered by the first fire, was equivalent to 21 tons of explosive material, the National Earthquake Bureau said.

Executives for Ruihai Logistics, the company which owns the warehouse where the inferno originated, were arrested, police said. The website for Ruihai Logistics said the company is approved to handle hazardous materials.

Ruihai Logistic oversaw a 46,000-square-meter facility that housed warehouses for storing and distributing hazardous materials,according to its website, Reuters reported.

China's President Xi Jinping demanded severe punishment for anyone found responsible for the explosions.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said six battalions of firefighters had brought the ensuing fire under control, although it was still burning in the early hours of Thursday. Authorities announced they suspended further efforts to douse the blaze because they had not been given clear information as to the nature of the potentially hazardous materials being stored in the warehouses.

Rescue teams detected high levels of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides as far as a half-mile from the scene, Xinhua reported. A 217-member team of specialists in nuclear, biological and chemical materials was brought in to begin assessing and cleaning up toxic material, the agency reported.

The city has set up 17 monitoring stations for air, and another five for water. Three sewage outlets to the sea have been closed, said Wen Wurui, head of the city's environmental protection bureau, at the press conference.

Several buildings were destroyed in the blasts, and more than 1,000 new cars were left charred in a nearby parking lot, the Beijing News reported.

As many as 3,500 nearby residents have been relocated to 10 schools because of damage to their home. The number could reach 6,000 by Thursday night, Zhang Yong, head of the Binhai district government, said at a press conference, according to Xinhua.

Accidents of this nature are not uncommon in China's rapidly expanding cities, where residential areas bump up against industrial zones.

Tianjin is currently being incorporated into the Chinese capital of Beijing, as part of a plan to create a super city of over 130 million people known as Jing-Jin-Ji.

A spokesman for Tianjin's port said it was operating normally, despite the fire. The port is the 10th largest in the world and seventh largest in China. It has grown in importance as companies wanting lower manufacturing costs have migrated to the north from eastern and southern China’s manufacturing centers.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/08/13/firefighters-dead-china-explosions/31598019/

Structure of the Lead：

Who- not given

When- Thursday

What- the explosion in Tianjin

Why- people who work in warehouse were so careless

Where- Tianjin

How- horrible and nervous

Keywords:

1.      shrapnel-彈片

2.      skull-頭骨

3.      fracture-使…骨折；破裂

4.      putrid-腐臭的

5.      equivalent-相等的

6.      inferno-地獄

7.      battalion-軍隊；營

8.      douse-澆熄

9.      sulfur-硫磺

10.  sewage-汙穢物