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

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I

IHaveIce

Banned
marrec said:
Totally, I'd feel different about it too if it were intentional, but what I'm saying is always bet on human stupidity first.
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Though to note chinese factories and stuff are awful at keeping up to security standards, I am a mechatronic and the company I work for is sometimes sent out to China ( from Germany) and I have seen stuff man.. it would be also no surprise if they disabled failsafe programms intentionally there.

Though this time you are probably right, someone fucked something up.
 
S

strafer

member
Am I the only one watching the videos with the sound off? Somehow the sound is making me really uncomfortable, even though the whole situation is really sad.
 
D

DoktorEvil

Banned
L

Lakitu

st5fu
I haven't been following this, do we know if this was an accident? And why were there explosives in the shipping container in the first place? Is that normal?
 
T

The Lamp

Member
Serrato said:
Well, if the ''rumours'' that they have lax or just had bad security measures about those things, they would not want to lose face because they didn't enforce them on companies to save money in the long run.

Pride is one of the worst ''sin''.
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It's not a rumor. China doesn't enforce chemical process safety very well and they intentionally censor a lot of information about their industry. I wonder if it takes a disaster like this before they discard their pride and actually care about strictly regulating their chemical industry.
 
W

Walpurgis

Banned
The injuries and casualties are MUCH lower than I expected. After someone on reddit posted 7k-70k injured/dead, I completely lost hope. I hope the numbers are accurate and they don't climb.
 
V

Veritigo_X

Member
Walpurgis said:
The injuries and casualties are MUCH lower than I expected. After someone on reddit posted 7k-70k injured/dead, I completely lost hope. I hope the numbers are accurate and they don't climb.
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There's your problem right there. I can pull random numbers out of my ass too. 70k was thought to be a ridiculous number right when it was posted.
 
S

superseohyun

Member
Apparently, the first patch of fire fighters did not know what was inside the container and used water to put out fire. Turns out the warehouse was supposed to store calcium carbide...
 
L

Log4Girlz

Member
The Lamp said:
It's not a rumor. China doesn't enforce chemical process safety very well and they intentionally censor a lot of information about their industry. I wonder if it takes a disaster like this before they discard their pride and actually care about strictly regulating their chemical industry.
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I don't know. I hope they do and don't go down Texas' route of not giving a shit.
 
S

Serrato

Member
The Lamp said:
It's not a rumor. China doesn't enforce chemical process safety very well and they intentionally censor a lot of information about their industry. I wonder if it takes a disaster like this before they discard their pride and actually care about strictly regulating their chemical industry.
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I see.

Do we know what did explode? Cause I've read petroleum, ethanol, explosives and other things. Explosives seems to be the most probable cause I think? Because... would petrol really explode with such magnitude?
 
S

superseohyun

Member
Bedameister said:
Oh that is really a very bad idea.
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yup it was... a surviving fire fighter said after the container being sprayed water for 10 minutes, it began to light up. Then a small explosion followed by those huge ones. His truck was responsible for providing water for the frontline truck so he luckily survived. 5 of his team mates' fate still unknow though. another fire fighter just used up his water before the explosion so he went to fill up, thus survived.
 
B

Briarios

Member
Walpurgis said:
The injuries and casualties are MUCH lower than I expected. After someone on reddit posted 7k-70k injured/dead, I completely lost hope. I hope the numbers are accurate and they don't climb.
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The Chinese government will never release accurate numbers. There is too much incentive to downplay the event. Shortly, they will begin to censor coverage of the event, just like they have with every other major industrial accident.
 
Pilgrimzero

Pilgrimzero

Member
As much as China doesn't care about safety, pollution, or human lives, this (a giant chemical explosion) was just a matter of time.

Even the firefighters weren't given need to know info.
 
THE:MILKMAN

THE:MILKMAN

Member
superseohyun said:
Apparently, the first patch of fire fighters did not know what was inside the container and used water to put out fire. Turns out the warehouse was supposed to store calcium carbide...
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A quick Google and does it suggest that eventually, given the ingredients, Hydrogen gas is created leading to the massive explosion?

I ain't got a clue with chemistry.
 
U

User 73706

Banned
DoktorEvil said:
FUCK.

Ok I got the picture now.
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It's not really equivalent to a hydrogen bomb because that would imply some type of intentional, atomic-level detonation: a closer (not scientifically applicable, mind you) parallel would be firefighters trying to put out a wildfire approaching a mound of TNT a few tons in size, only for the increased temperature to magically alchemize their water into gasoline at a certain threshold. So, not quite nuclear warhead level, but still enough "homebrew" materials at play to cause a sizable explosion.
 
D

Divvy

Canadians burned my passport
QkrEBvn.jpg
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This doesn't seem to be a good colour for smoke
 
RadioactiveLobster

RadioactiveLobster

Member
Divvy said:
This doesn't seem to be a good colour for smoke
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This is apparently from the 15 tons of Hydrogen Peroxide they are using to try to counter a massive cyanide leak that is starting to leak into the sewers and water run off

They've already shut every drain to the sea they could.
 
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