August 13, 2015

"A warehouse in the Chinese port city of Tianjin erupted in a series of thunderous explosions, killing at least 50 people..."

"... spewing massive fireballs and forcing officials Thursday to face uncomfortable questions about industrial safety standards and possible toxic fallout."
The fiery blasts — powerful enough to register on earthquake monitoring scales and shatter windows several miles away — began in a warehouse storing “dangerous and chemical goods” that had caught on fire shortly before midnight Wednesday, state media reported....

On Thursday morning, reporters were moved away from the explosion zone, and users of Chinese social media networks complained that their posts were being deleted. Some of the posts questioned the number of casualties, while others lamented that Tianjin television stations were playing cartoons and soap operas rather than coverage of the explosion.

One deleted post read: “The explosion in Tianjin shocked the world, but only Tianjin TV did not feel it.”

24 comments:

rhhardin said...

You'd think it would be thundrous, like wondrous.

chickelit said...

Id-entity politics are not allowed in the Chinese media; it's all about stroking the super-ego.

Paddy O said...

Yet another argument why we need high speed rail in California.

traditionalguy said...

Ah so.. China men have an EPA in need of protection from the truth too.

They should blame the bomb on an American SealTeam that swam in from Taipei. who could say it was not that way???

FleetUSA said...

AGW impact for sure

rhhardin said...

Also don't buy powdered garlic made in China. It grows in their rich soil.

Most of it comes from China, you really have to hunt.

chickelit said...

rhhardin said...
Also don't buy powdered garlic made in China. It grows in their rich soil.

Many of the sulfur-containg compounds in garlic like aliin, allicin, et al. are fantastic sequesterers of heavy metals.

Curious George said...

The government does the math: 50 isn't even a rounding error when you have 1.4 billion people.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Maybe our EPA could give them advice

rhhardin said...

Another effect was disrupting the US package delivery system.

An Amazon DVD ("arriving today") that yesterday shipped from Lexington KY and Hebron KY made it as close to me as Groveport, OH at 3am this morning, was transferred to the postal system and is now in Vienna, VA.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

In all fairness, Chinese seismic monitoring equipment is pretty good and Chinese windows are pretty crappy.

MayBee said...

I'm sure we'll get the full truth of the matter in a short time.

Sebastian said...

After the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, what's 50 dead here or there?

campy said...

The fiery blasts — powerful enough to register on earthquake monitoring scales and shatter windows several miles away — began in a warehouse storing “dangerous and chemical goods”

It's time to stop making goods out of chemicals!

madAsHell said...

It's all a plan to cripple their economy with ISO-9000.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
SteveR said...

"Safety Standards"? lol They don't just compete by paying lower wages.

David said...

"dangerous AND chemical goods"

I wonder what the dangerous ones were?

William said...

Does Exxon have a branch office there? If it does, teams of investigative reporters will cover the human toll of this great calamity. If not, the Chinese account of this will be accepted with faint skepticism.

Peter said...

So much for fireworks supplies for July 4, 2016.

MadisonMan said...

Viewable from geostationary satellite. Link.

Michael K said...

It's a good thing it blew up before it reached Iran. Maybe the CIA timer was off a few days.

MadisonMan said...

There was a pretty mind-boggling picture in the paper this morning, acres of cars destined for shipment, now just carbonized shells: Link.

Pity the poor photographer who took it, probably now languishing in a Chinese jail.

Rusty said...

This must be what ARM means when he says the Chinese economy is booming.