Apocalyptic aftermath (Image: Xinhua/REX Shutterstock)
WHAT caused the enormous chemical blasts that ripped through the Chinese port of Tianjin last week? On Tuesday, the Chinese government to find out.
The official chemical inventory of the warehouse where the fire started has yet to be recovered. Despite this, clues are emerging. Sodium cyanide has been found in water samples at almost 30 times the legally safe concentration. Calcium carbide, used in the manufacture of PVC, was reportedly stored in the warehouse and could also be a culprit, says Joe Eades of Ispahan Engineering in Singapore. If it had been leaking, water from sprinklers turned on accidentally may have reacted with it to produce enough acetylene, a flammable gas, for a sizeable fire.
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Eades says that ammonium and potassium nitrate, used in fertilisers, are also thought to have been there. These would have exploded when exposed to the blazing acetylene.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淐hemical catastrophe鈥�