Huge China explosions leave scores dead, hundreds injured

Smoke billows behind rows of burnt-out cars at the site of a series of explosions in Tianjin, northern China, on August 13, 2015/AFP

Tianjin, China,  Enormous explosions in a major Chinese port city killed at least 44 people and injured more than 500, state media reported Thursday, leaving a devastated industrial landscape of incinerated cars, toppled shipping containers and burnt-out buildings. An AFP reporter in Tianjin saw shattered glass up to three kilometres (two miles) from the blast site, after a shipment of explosives detonated in a warehouse, unleashing a fireball that lit up the night sky and rained debris on the city.

The explosion was felt several kilometres away, even being picked up by a Japanese weather satellite, and images showed walls of flame enveloping buildings and rank after rank of gutted cars.
“When I felt the explosion I thought it was an earthquake,” resident Zhang Zhaobo told AFP. “I ran to my father and I saw the sky was already red. All the glass was broken, and I was really afraid.”
Images obtained by AFP showed residents, some partially clothed, running for shelter on a street strewn with debris.

Smoke billows behind rows of burnt-out cars at the site of a series of explosions in Tianjin, northern China, on August 13, 2015/AFP

Tianjin, China, Aug 13 – Enormous explosions in a major Chinese port city killed at least 44 people and injured more than 500, state media reported Thursday, leaving a devastated industrial landscape of incinerated cars, toppled shipping containers and burnt-out buildings. An AFP reporter in Tianjin saw shattered glass up to three kilometres (two miles) from the blast site, after a shipment of explosives detonated in a warehouse, unleashing a fireball that lit up the night sky and rained debris on the city.
The explosion was felt several kilometres away, even being picked up by a Japanese weather satellite, and images showed walls of flame enveloping buildings and rank after rank of gutted cars.
“When I felt the explosion I thought it was an earthquake,” resident Zhang Zhaobo told AFP. “I ran to my father and I saw the sky was already red. All the glass was broken, and I was really afraid.”
Images obtained by AFP showed residents, some partially clothed, running for shelter on a street strewn with debris.