High levels of dangerous chemicals remain at the site of last
week's deadly chemical warehouse blasts in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin
-- hundreds of times higher than is safe at one spot -- officials said
Thursday, signaling that a cleanup has a significant way to go.
Water tests show
high levels of sodium cyanide,
an extremely toxic chemical that can kill humans rapidly, at eight locations at
the blast site, Ministry of Environmental Protection official Tian Weiyong
said.
The sodium
cyanide level at one spot was 356 times higher than a safety limit, Tian said.
The polluted water
is being contained in a "warning zone" around the blast site,
officials said. City authorities have said that air and water quality outside
the blast zone has been in the normal range, but angry citizens with homes
nearby have expressed concerns about the long-term environmental and health
consequences of the blasts.
"Cyanide pollution is severe inside the warning zone.
Outside the zone overall, the amount of cyanide detected is at normal
range," Tian said.
The
August 12 blasts occurred
at a warehouse, wheremore than 700 tons of highly toxic substances, mainly sodium cyanide, were being
stored, state media have reported.
At least 114
people were killed as a result of the explosions, and 69 people are reported
missing.
The explosions
affected a huge swath of the city: 17,000 homes damaged, more than 170
companies affected and 3,000 cars destroyed.
Thousands of
people whose homes were damaged by the explosions' shock waves took shelter in
nearby schools and apartment compounds in the days afterward.
Officials said
cleanup crews have been making progress. As of Thursday, about 20% of the sodium
cyanide had been removed from the blast site, Tianjin Vice Mayor He Shushan
said, according to the People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's official
newspaper.
Tianjin
environmental monitoring official Deng Xiaowen said that all of the polluted water
is "blocked in the blast area." There was no information about what
immediate dangers the cyanide at the blast site could pose.
"It won't
be discharged before reaching to the normal quality standard," he said
Thursday.
U.N. expert criticizes China's handling of Tianjin blasts
A top U.N. expert has criticized China
over its handling of the Tianjin blasts, saying a better flow of information
might have lessened or even prevented the disaster.
Baskut Tuncak,
the U.N.'s special rapporteur on human rights and hazardous substances and
wastes, called on the Chinese government to ensure complete transparency in the
investigation of the disaster.
"The lack
of information when needed -- information that could have mitigated or perhaps
even prevented this disaster -- is truly tragic," he said in a statement
Wednesday.
"Moreover,
the reported restrictions on public access to health and safety information and
freedom of the press in the aftermath are deeply disturbing, particularly to
the extent it risks increasing the number of victims of this disaster."
The blunt rebuke
comes after China's State Council formed an investigative committee to
"give a responsible answer" about the cause of the disaster and promised
"serious punishment" for those responsible.
On Wednesday,
Tianjin Mayor Huang Xingguo addressed the media for the first time, saying he
bore "an unshirkable responsibility" for the blasts.
Possible safety violations
News reports have suggested that safety
violations and corporate negligence may have played a role in the disaster.
The company that owned the site had a license to handle
dangerous chemicals, but only since June. The company's previous license lapsed
in October.
"After the
first license expired, we applied for an extension. We did not cease operation
because we did not think it was a problem. Many other companies have continued
working without a license," Yu Xuewei, chairman of Rui Hai International
Logistics, was quoted by
state news agency Xinhua as saying.
Yu is in detention, along
with nine other executives.
The Xinhua
report also said that the company's major shareholder, Dong Shexuan, was the
son of a former police chief for Tianjin Port and the connection helped the
business.
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