Posted on 08/14/2015 5:59:37 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
World | Fri Aug 14, 2015 7:53am EDT
Related: World, China
Chinese official defends fire fighters after Tianjin blasts, experts focus on response
TIANJIN, China | By Adam Rose and Megha Rajagopalan
A senior Chinese official defended fire fighters who initially hosed water on a blaze in a warehouse in northeast China where volatile chemicals were stored, a response foreign experts said could have contributed to two huge blasts that killed 54 people.
More than a dozen firefighters were among those killed by the massive explosions at the busy port in Tianjin city on Wednesday night, state media said. About 700 people were injured, 71 seriously.
Columns of smoke from fires still burning on Friday rose from the blast site amid the devastation of crumpled shipping containers, thousands of torched cars and port buildings reduced to burnt-out shells. Rescuers pulled one survivor, from the wreckage, a city official told reporters. State television later said it was a firefighter.
The warehouse, designed to house dangerous and toxic chemicals, was storing mainly ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate and calcium carbide at the time of the blasts, according to police. The official Xinhua news agency has said several containers in the warehouse caught fire before the explosions.
Chemical safety experts said calcium carbide reacts with water to create acetylene, a highly explosive gas. An explosion could be caused if fire fighters sprayed the calcium carbide with water, they said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
That’s why you plan. Putting the wet stuff on the red stuff isn’t always the go to tactic.
P!
I wonder if the ChiComs put those little diamond shaped hazmat signs on their warehouses — and if the owners were honest about what was in there,
DETECTED:
CALCIUM CARBIDE
SODIUM NITRATE
POTASSIUM NITRATE
NOT YET CONFIRMED:
SODIUM CYANIDE
AMMONIUM NITRATE
TOLUENE DIISOCYANATE
METHYL ETHYL KETONE
NITROCELLULOSE
SULFUR
FORMIC ACID
METHACRYLIC ACID
SODIUM SULFIDE
Good grief!
Folks, the local fire department responded to a fire. The were killed in the process.
Yes...it was not the kind of fire they though...but for the Chinese people, these guys were heroes just like our own would be considered if lost in the line of duty.
The Chinese Communist government is not our friend and ultimately it needs to come down. I except, as more and more Chinese people acquire possessions of their own and a decent standard of living, it will be they who bring about the change.
This is about a tragedy...just like any we have faced.
Do we run down or attack the 911 fire fighters who lost their lives trying to save others? No, of course not.
IMHO, people should not do so here either.
I am sure some “party bosses.” in Tianjin are going to get the axe. No doubt about that. But when a fire breaks out at midnight, you send in the first responders. In this case as they tried to address it on the scene...those explosions killed a bunch of them. Sad day for their fire fighters. may they RIP.
See my Flickr Photo Album about the Tianjin Disaster:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeff_head/albums/72157654841719103
Exactly right.
Every Fire Chief/Department should have a Fire Plan for every commercial building in his district. Details would include entry doors, floor plans, normal contents, Fire suppression systems, locations of fire hose reels and isolation valves, hazardous materials MSDS and any other pertinent information.
Just guessing but if the Fire Chief had a plan and knew what was in these buildings he may have just set up a perimeter of containment and let the place burn.
I have seen a number of places where that was the strategy. It isn’t worth risking firemen’s lives to save property when there is little chance of saving the building and there are no people in the building.
Many of those are highly reactive and require special firefighting equipment. Equipment the local FD may not have had.
CC
Judging from the state of the environment in China, I’d say no. Human life is still cheap there.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt
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