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DISASTER MANAGEMENT
'Kids on the frontline': China firefighters in spotlight after blasts
By Benjamin HAAS
Beijing (AFP) Aug 20, 2015


Cyanide 356 times limits found at China blast test point: officials
Beijing (AFP) Aug 20, 2015 - Cyanide levels more than 350 times standard limits have been detected in water close to the site of deadly explosions in the Chinese port city of Tianjin, officials said Thursday.

The Tianjin environmental protection bureau said the chemical was detected at 25 water monitoring sites within the cordoned-off area around the blast site on Wednesday.

"An excessive level of cyanide was detected in eight locations with the highest reaching 356 times" the permitted level, the bureau said.

Authorities have previously said that cyanide tests had shown levels 28 times limits. The environmental bureau statement did not explain the sudden spike higher.

Of the 16 test points outside the alert area, cyanide was detected at six, but all below the normal limit, the environment bureau said.

The blasts at a hazardous goods storage facility last week triggered a giant fireball and killed at least 114 people. More than 60 others are missing, with seven of the recovered bodies yet to be identified.

The explosions have also sparked fears of toxic pollutants contaminating the air and water of the city, which has a population of around 15 million people.

About 700 tonnes of highly poisonous sodium cyanide were at the site, officials have said.

Sodium cyanide, which has a variety of industrial uses including gold mining, is a toxic white crystal or powder. It can release hydrogen cyanide gas, used in gas chamber executions in the US.

Acute exposure at lower concentrations can cause weakness, nausea and eye and skin irritation while chronic exposure can affect the cardiovascular and central nervous systems, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

State broadcaster CCTV reported that the average level of cyanide in the water filling a huge crater at the centre of the blast site was more than 40 times average.

"All the polluted water is contained in the cordoned off area," environment protection official Tian Weiyong told reporters. "We won't drain it until we clean it up."

Recovery personnel have built a dam of sand and earth around the blasts' central 100,000-square-metre (120,000-square-yard) "core area" to prevent pollutant leakage, and officials insist air and water are safe.

But locals openly express doubts and international environmental environment group Greenpeace has urged caution.

President Xi Jinping and other top leaders called Thursday for those responsible to be held accountable, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

State media have reported that 10 executives from Tianjin Rui Hai International, the company that operated the warehouse storing the dangerous chemicals, were detained after the blasts.

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), meanwhile, has ordered inspections of its caches of weapons and ammunition in the wake of the Tianjin explosions, a military newspaper reported.

China's army and armed police were told to check warehouses holding weapons, ammunition, fuel, chemicals, explosives and toxic materials, the PLA Daily said.

The instructions came after state media reports last week that the State Council Work Safety Commission announced nationwide inspections of businesses involved in dangerous chemicals and explosives.

As the child of poor Chinese farmers Yang Weigang never dreamt of being a firefighter. But when he grew up, the chance of making a little more money than his poverty-stricken parents outweighed the dangers.

Yang, 24, was among the first to respond to a fire at a hazardous goods storage warehouse in the port of Tianjin last week. As efforts were made to contain the blaze, two monumental explosions sent flames towering into the sky and left scenes of apocalyptic devastation.

He has not been seen since, one of 48 firefighters still missing. A total of 56 firefighters have been confirmed among the 114 dead, with seven corpses yet to be identified.

"There are no jobs in our hometown, so when Yang Weigang heard from a friend the port was hiring firefighters, it was the best job he could find," his father Yang Jie told AFP.

Nearly all of China's firemen are contract labourers -- young, poor men from the countryside who receive limited training, provoking public concern over the professionalism and capabilities of the emergency service.

Questions have been raised over whether poorly trained firefighters responding to the Tianjin blaze could have contributed to the detonations by spraying water over calcium carbide, listed as being at the site, which reacts with it to produce highly combustible acetylene gas.

- 'Our only son' -

The Yang family have been farmers in Yu county in Hebei province, which borders both Tianjin and Beijing, for generations. The younger Yang was the first to leave, spending four years as a soldier before being lured to the port fire brigade by monthly pay of more than 3,500 yuan ($550), nearly double what his father makes as a farmer and occasional handyman.

The sons of 10 other families from the area did the same, his father said, all of them poorly educated but looking to eke out a marginally better life than their parents.

Yang's training was little more than morning runs, a brief introduction on using equipment and being given a book to study on firefighting techniques, his father said.

"We only saw our son once a year after he started working as a firefighter," Yang Jie said wearily. "He had a girlfriend, we hoped they would get married and give us a grandchild.

"He was our only son," he added.

Yang was one of the hundreds of millions of Chinese who have left the countryside to seek work in major cities.

They are often treated as second-class citizens in their adopted cities, denied the same social benefits as locals.

- Low pay, high risk -

China's firefighters divide into three levels: those employed directly by the ministry of public security -- which also oversees the police -- those who work for local governments, and contract teams established by businesses with a high risk of fire.

Nearly all the country's 130,000 fire personnel come under the third category, the ministry says, including those who worked for the port of Tianjin.

Salaries are generally around 3,000 yuan a month and turnover is typically high, according to relatives and media reports.

Chinese media have compared firefighters' training and compensation unfavourably with those in developed countries.

Firefighters in the US earn about $49,000, slightly above the national average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those in London undergo up to 16 weeks of classroom and practical training and a battery of medical, physical and psychological evaluations.

"The firefighter system should be professionalised, we should learn from the experience of other countries," said one user on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like service. "We should not be sending 17 or 18-year-old kids to the front lines of disasters."

Another poster wrote: "These kids are just a way for the government to save money and keep public funds for themselves. What happens in the next large fire? Will we send professionals to save lives or kids?"

But authorities seeking to quash criticism of the system have said that any questioning of the firefighters' abilities denigrates the memories of the dead.

"Don't add salt to the wound," Zhou Tian, the fire chief of Tianjin, told the People's Daily, the Communist Party's mouthpiece.

"If the relatives of firefighters who sacrificed their lives and were injured and resting in hospital heard that you questioned the way they put out the fire, what would they feel?"

Liu Zhiqiao was among the first on the scene, before the deadly blasts, according to his family. All but one of his 25-man brigade are missing, and the sole exception has been confirmed dead.

"I still have hope, but I don't know why," said his mother, who only gave her surname, Yang. "I've been to every hospital in the city and I still can't find him, but the government also won't tell me anything."

bdh/slb/erf

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