Chemical facilitiesWorries grow about rain-induced toxic chemical clouds from destroyed Chinese facility

China’s state-run news agency has reported that the warehouse where last Wednesday’s powerful explosions in the Chinese city of Tianjin originated, received a license to handle hazardous chemicals only two months before the disaster.

Xinhua reported today (Tuesday) that between October 2014,when large quantities of hazardous chemical were moved into the warehouse, and June 2015, Tianjin Dongjiang Port Rui Hai International Logistics, the company which owns the warehouse, did not have the required legal permits to handle such dangerous materials.

Chinese media reported that the president and vice-chairman of the company were among the ten Rui Hai employees who were detained by state authorities as early as last Thursday.

The reports said that Rui Hai company president Yu Xuewei and vice-chairman Dong Shexuan were placed “under control” on the afternoon after the blasts. Local newspaper Caijing reports that four of the Rui Hai employees are in hospital and six others are at Tianjin No. 1 Detention Center.

Earlier today, former deputy mayor of Tianjin and current director of the State Administration of Work Safety – China’s equivalent of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) — was also placed under investigation.

A statement posted on the government’s anti-corruption Web site said that Yang Dongliang, who was vice-mayor of Tianjin between 2009 and 2012, is suspected of “serious violations of discipline and law.”

The BBC reports that the city of Tianjin, whose water supplies have already been found to be contaminated by the toxic sodium cyanide released in the explosion, now faces other risks, as heavy rain began to fall on the city – and the site of the explosion – Monday night. Chemical engineers said there is a danger that the rain might set off more chemical reactions, creating clouds of toxic gas which would waft over residential areas – some of them less than a mile from the destroyed chemical facility – and hobble rescue and recovery work.

Chinese TV showed residents of neighborhoods closes to the chemical plant, wearing gas masks and protective gear and accompanied by armed policemen, returning to their homes to pick up belongings before being evacuated to evacuation centers set up by the government.

Engineers are especially worried about the rain reacting with the more than 700 tons of sodium cyanide still stored at two locations on the site.

Earlier today, health and safety officials announced that more toxic and volatile chemicals were discovered by first responders sent to investigate the partially destroyed facility.

Niu Yuegang, deputy director at Tianjin’s fire department, said that more than forty different types of chemicals have now been discovered at the blast site, including 700 tons of sodium cyanide, 800 tons of ammonium nitrate, and 500 tons of potassium nitrate.

The BBC notes that footage from drone flying over the site and broadcast on state TV channel CCTV showed a huge crater where the explosion occurred. The crater has been filled with water since Friday.

Yesterday, Tianjin’s vice-mayor He Shushan confirmed that sodium cyanide had been found as far as one kilometer from the site of the explosion.

The official count now stands at 114 dead, 700 injured, and 53 missing. Most of the dead, injured, and missing are firefighters.