Chemical plants safetySodium cyanide stored at explosion site pollutes city’s water
The Chinese government says that 114 people, most of them firefighters, have been killed and ninety-five still missing after first responders were sent to the Tianjin chemical plant to fight large fires which broke out after a powerful explosion at the plant last Wednesday. Chinese officials say they found 700 tons of sodium cyanide at two locations at the site. Chinese public health officials said on Monday that the health risks of last week’s explosion are spreading, reporting that alarming levels of sodium cyanide have been found at wastewater monitoring stations in and around the city of Tianjin.
The Chinese government says that 114 people, most of them firefighters, have been killed and ninety-five still missing after first responders were sent to the Tianjin chemical plant to fight large fires which broke out after a powerful explosion at the plant last Wednesday.
News agencies report that the quantity of sodium cyanide stored at the site were seventy times the permitted quantity.
The BBC reports that hundreds of rescue workers wearing gas masks and protective suits were working frantically to clear the area before the weather changes, for fear that gusts of wind could spread the toxins to nearby urban areas and that rain might cause a dangerous reaction with chemicals stored at the sprawling site.
Chinese officials say they found 700 tons of sodium cyanide at two locations at the site. Some reports in the Chinese media said that Rui Hai International Logistics, the company which owned the warehouse where the first explosion occurred, may have been illegally transporting chemicals.
The Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, visited the site on Sunday, and was greeted by angry protesters from neighboring housing complex.
Some of the large apartment buildings evacuated after the blast are located less than 800 meters from the plant’s large storage facilities, in violation of Chinese law which stipulates that warehouses storing large quantities of chemicals are not permitted to be that close to a residential area. “From a legal perspective it’s unreasonable that dangerous chemicals would be so close,” one resident told AP.
The Guardian reports that Chinese public health officials said on Monday that the health risks of last week’s explosion are spreading, reporting that alarming levels of sodium cyanide have been found at wastewater monitoring stations in and around the city of Tianjin.
At a press conference on Monday morning, Bao Jingling, the chief engineer from Tianjin’s environmental protection bureau, said excessive levels of the toxic chemical had been detected in surface wastewater at the blast site. The highest levels detected were twenty-seven times acceptable limits.
Exposure to sodium cyanide — a white crystalline or granular powder with a variety of industrial uses — can be “rapidly fatal,” according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
