By
August 14, 2015 6:38 pm - NewsBehavingBadly.com

[su_center_b]

New York’s Daily News has arguably the most amazing “dash cam” footage of Wednesday’s multiple explosions in the Chinese port city of Tianjin. There is no audio, which makes the increasing result of the explosions even more terrifuying:

Meanwhile, few answers are emerging as the death toll continues to rise. The New York Times reports:

The high-rise apartment complex closest to Tianjin’s toxic chemical storage inferno was only 2,000 feet away, despite Chinese laws requiring a 3,200-foot minimum distance from hazardous sites.

The disclosure was among the new details emerging on Friday that suggested possible criminal negligence, mixed with rife speculation of an official cover-up, in the aftermath of the fire Wednesday night in Tianjin — China’s third-largest city and a major northeast seaport, about 90 miles east of Beijing.

With the death toll rising to at least 56 on Friday, more than 700 hospitalized and an unknown number still missing in the smoldering wreckage, the fire was shaping up as one of China’s worst industrial calamities. It appeared to expose the kinds of regulatory lapses that have plagued the country’s transformation into a global economic powerhouse.

Government officials, acutely aware of concerns over the fire, have sought to suppress unauthorized information. They seemed unprepared for the tough questions posed at a news conference in Tianjin on Friday, including why hazardous chemicals had been stockpiled so near populated areas. They abruptly ended the conference.

[su_facebook][su_publirb]

D.B. Hirsch
D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.