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Massive explosion in Tianjin, China (Update: at least 44 dead, 500+ injured)

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Pankratous

Member
Is it even possible to get an accurate death count in a situation like this? Judging from that GIF earlier, anyone near the explosion may be absolutely disintegrated.
 
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maquiladora

Member
CMQKtT2UcAAD_eE.jpg


Looks like the fireball must have been about 500m wide to torch all these cars.

CMQQL0XWoAAX0Ia.jpg
 
A

antonz

Member
Pankratous said:
Is it even possible to get an accurate death count in a situation like this? Judging from that GIF earlier, anyone near the explosion may be absolutely disintegrated.
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Yeah the only thing people can really hope for is that the initial early hour means the people in the area was at an absolute minimum. Within that blast radius there would be almost no chance of survival
 
D

DieH@rd

Banned
54-46! said:
Looks like a tactical nuke or something, crazy.
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Nukes are incredibly more powerful.

maquiladora said:
Looks like the fireball must have been about 500m wide to torch all these cars.
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Not necessarily. They could have all self-immolated by the heat that was generated by the main blast. Wood starts to burn by itself at over 200C, no "flame" is needed. Just heat and oxygen. And maybe only the closest cars were burning immediately after explosion, rest caught fire afterwards.
 
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spekkeh

Banned
TearsOfBlood said:
You do realize they tried to bury the trains in the Wenzhou train crash to cover the whole thing up?
After this was discovered the backlash on the internet was big, which the Party promptly decided to delete any trace of. You can probably still find news articles with 10.000+ comments on the comment tracker, yet when you try to look at them, you can find 100+ at most.

To be fair, this was under Hu Jintao. Its going to be interesting to see how Xi deals with this. The empty rhetoric is still just what it is though, empty until actual actions are taken.
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A lot of the pictures and videos on the liveblog were apparently also rapidly disappearing yesterday evening, and about an hour after the blast the government said the fire was under control. They didn't cover up most of the earthquake because it was a natural disaster, so you can blame it on fate and not the government.
 
S

Syriel

Member
goldsoundz said:
That must not be a densely populated area. How an explosion like that doesn't kill hundreds of people makes no sense at all to me, and hopefully that doesn't turn out to be the case.
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Shipping area at a port.

Wookieomg said:
holy fuck i just heard about everything that happened today.. this is so terrible. and explosions are still happening? have we gotten official word on what caused the explosions or is the chinese gov't staying tight-lipped?

i truly hope people can get to shelter and avoid any more danger.. this is some terrifying shit.
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Reports are starting to come out. Started a new thread with details on the explosive force, reported cause and current estimates of dead and injured:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1095447
 
T

TearsOfBlood

Member
spekkeh said:
A lot of the pictures and videos on the liveblog were apparently also rapidly disappearing yesterday evening, and about an hour after the blast the government said the fire was under control. They didn't cover up most of the earthquake because it was a natural disaster, so you can blame it on fate and not the government.
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Exactly.

If you want news that has more press freedom and is in line with the actual facts, keep track of the Southern China newspapers. They tend to be under less direct state control and provide information you normally wouldn't get.

The explosions really are insane, though I'm also more worried about what stuff (chemicals) was released in the air when everything went up in flames.
 
R

Rektash

Member
People need to stop comparing this explosion to a nuke going off. If this was a nuke, not a single one of those videos would be online right now. Why? Because no one filming a nuke from this close would have survived.

My heart goes out to the families afflicted.
 
Impulsor

Impulsor

Member
Jesus christ, saw this last night before going to bed, all these videos from a different perspective make me appreciate the magnitude that much more...
 
C

commedieu

Banned
Darkangel said:
Word on the internet is that the explosion might have wiped out or damaged China's second fastest super computer. The National Supercomputing Center of Tianjin was right beside the explosion site and their website is currently down:

http://nscc-tj.gov.cn/en/index.asp
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BEIJING, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- China has shut down supercomputer Tianhe-1A due to the blast in Tianjin Wednesday night.

Tianhe-1A, located at the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, is just kilometers from the blast center.

The shockwaves shattered windows at the center and caused collapsed ceilings inside the building, according to the center's staff.

The supercomputer was still running smoothly immediately after the blast, said Liu Guangming, director of the center.

Protected by a reinforced computer room, the supercomputer and its database remain intact, said Liu.

Liu and his staff said they decided to manually shut down Tianhe-1A half an hour after the blast due to security concerns.

An explosion ripped through a warehouse where dangerous chemicals were stored in north China's Tianjin City late Wednesday night. The blast had killed 17 people and injured more than 400 as of Thursday morning, according to rescuers.

Tianhe-1A, which can perform 2.57 quadrillion computing operations per second, was recognized as the world's fastest computing system in 2010, according to a biannual Top 500 supercomputer list.
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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-08/13/c_134511711.htm
 
U

User 100115

Banned
The Guardian says press conference is incoming


We are expecting a press conference from authorities in Tianjin in around half an hour, at which we would hope to hear further information on the rescue efforts and those affected.

In the meantime, here is what we know about the blasts that rocked the port city on Wednesday night, and their aftermath:

At least 44 people have been killed, including 12 firefighters. Some 520 people are injured, including 66 in critical condition in hospital.
Authorities earlier said they had lost contact with a further 36 firefighters tackling the huge blazes. It is not clear if this includes the 12 who are confirmed to have died. Over 1,000 firefighters and 143 fire trucks were dispatched to the scene.
Efforts to extinguish the fires have been suspended due to safety fears over possibly dangerous and/or toxic materials in the warehouses. Authorities have not said when they will resume.
Guardian reporter Fergus Ryan, who is in Tianjin, says smoke continues to billow across the city; he also reported a further small explosion and fires still ablaze, with damage to buildings and cars as far as 3km from the scene.
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H

Hanmik

Member
Fiction said:
Not sure if linked yet:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/vi...lasts-drone-video-footage-devastation-tianjin

HQ drone footage of the blast area
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wauw.. another crazy thing about that video.. we see fire, houses burning, and lots of smoke... but the road next to the ground is full of cars/trucks driving (to work I would guess).. it´s like they aren´t even noticing what is going on... I thought they would have shut down everything close by the ground zero to prevent more disasters, but nope lots of activity on that road.
 
B

Bedameister

Member
Hanmik said:
wauw.. another crazy thing about that video.. we see fire, houses burning, and lots of smoke... but the road next to the ground is full of cars/trucks driving (to work I would guess).. it´s like they aren´t even noticing what is going on... I thought they would have shut down everything close by the ground zero to prevent more disasters, but nope lots of activity on that road.
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I guess the cars and trucks on that road are only rescue forces, police and firefighters. No way they would let people take that road otherwise
 
K

komplanen

Member
Guys let's talk about what we learned about half-a-century old tactical nukes from video games in this thread about a gas explosion that killed dozens of people and injured hundreds.
 
V

Vastag

Member
Hanmik said:
wauw.. another crazy thing about that video.. we see fire, houses burning, and lots of smoke... but the road next to the ground is full of cars/trucks driving (to work I would guess).. it´s like they aren´t even noticing what is going on... I thought they would have shut down everything close by the ground zero to prevent more disasters, but nope lots of activity on that road.
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Those were firetrucks on the road.
 
L

lazer_bean

Member
Hanmik said:
Ok. Firetrucks where I live doesn't look like that, so I had no idea.
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I had a closer look after seeing your post too but yeah, one side of the road is almost empty (a white car has even stopped in one lane, lights blinking) and on the other side are some firetrucks.
 
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