BEIJING — The burned-out husk of a fire engine sits amid a field of rubble, its windows blown out, hoses and candy apple-red helmets scattered across the charred earth.
The image, captured on video, went viral on China's social media networks. The enormous explosions Wednesday killed at least 56 people and hospitalized hundreds in the northeastern Chinese city of Tianjin.
Several social media posts in the aftermath of the blasts have drawn attention to Tianjin's emergency responders. The writers have focused not only on the firefighters' youth and vulnerability, but also their possible role in precipitating the explosions, which shot massive fireballs into the air and caused shock waves so intense that they shattered windows miles away.
At least 21 firefighters died in the blasts, state media have reported.
Zhou Ti, a 19-year-old firefighter who was trapped for 32 hours, was pulled from the zone at dawn Friday and taken to a hospital, where he was treated for face, chest and foot injuries, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Zhou told CCTV the fire was spreading out of control. “I was knocked onto the ground at the first blast,” recalled Zhou, his eyes closed. “I covered my head and don't know what happened after that.”
The blast occurred at a port warehouse owned by the 4-year-old Tianjin Ruihai International Logistics company. State-run media said that the facility held “dangerous materials,” possibly including the chemical calcium carbide, which reacts violently to water.
Yet when firefighters were called to the warehouse at 10:50 Wednesday night, they attempted to douse a fire there with water cannons, according to several reports in Chinese media. Minutes later, two blasts roared through the sky that together had the force of 53 Tomahawk cruise missiles exploding, state-run media reported.
Beijing has dispatched 200 hazardous-chemical specialists — many of them in full protective suits and gas masks — to investigate the cause of the blast.
One firefighter told the liberal newspaper Southern Weekend that his brigade was never warned against the use of water.
Propaganda authorities required local media outlets to use “only copy from Xinhua (news service) and authoritative departments and media,” according to a censorship directive leaked to the news website China Digital Times. Officials said at a news conference Friday that even the names of the chemicals in the warehouse “cannot be determined at the moment,” contradicting previous reports.
The Southern Weekend report has been taken offline.
Lei Jinde, the deputy propaganda chief of China's national fire department, has denied that the authorities' response to the emergency was misguided or rash.
“Our firefighting department went through rigorous training and knew how to handle the situation scientifically and properly,” he told the Shanghai-based news website the Paper. “When our firefighters do not try to contain the situation, when they let it grow out of control, who knows what the results will be. Ordinary people can pull back. But our fighters, they can only push forward. That is our responsibility.”
