Aug. 13--REPORTING FROM TIANJIN, China -- Just before 11 p.m. Wednesday, Liu Bin received an ominous notice: A logistics facility had caught fire, and his fire brigade, located a mere 650 feet from the site, was to put it out.
About an hour later, Liu's mother received a call from an unfamiliar number, then heard her 26-year-old son's voice. "Mama, save me, I can't bear it," the firefighter told her, according to the Chinese Web portal NetEase. "My internal organs are frying." Later, when she found him at TEDA Hospital, he was being treated for fractured ribs, an injured lung and internal bleeding -- but he was very much alive.
Liu was among the lucky ones. The two explosions that tore through the northeastern Chinese municipality Tianjin late Wednesday -- shooting massive fireballs high above the port city's skyscrapers -- killed at least 50 people, many of them emergency responders; hospitalized at least 520 people with burns, cuts and other injuries; reduced hundreds of buildings to mangled, windowless wrecks; and burned or smashed hundreds of cars, buses and trucks.
At least 12 firefighters were killed responding to the inferno, according to state media, and at least 21 people are still missing. State media said the logistics facility held containers packed with "hazardous materials." The reasons for the blasts remain unclear.
The explosions rattled a large swath of Tianjin's Binhai New Area, a newly constructed urban district that includes an industrial area, high-tech office parks, upscale apartments and a port on the Bohai Sea. At 7 p.m. Thursday, thick smoke still billowed from the site of the blasts. At least five mid-rise buildings appeared to have been completely destroyed. The air carried an acrid scent like that of fireworks.
"I thought it was another 9/11," said George Cai, a native of nearby Hebei province living about two miles from the site of the explosions who came to survey the damage. Like many other curiosity seekers, he was able to get within about 1,000 feet of the site. "It was like something out of a Hollywood action movie, like Godzilla."
Near the logistics center, towers of mangled shipping containers teetered precariously as onlookers snapped selfies amid the burned-out rubble. Even businesses more than a mile away -- a McDonald's, a Ford dealership, offices inhabited by Foxconn, Hewlett-Packard and Standard Chartered -- were seriously damaged by the blast, their edifices twisted and their windows smashed. At a ruined fire station, the propaganda slogan "Listen to the party" glared from a shattered fa硤e.
President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang both urged "all-out efforts" to save the injured and contain the fire ignited by the blasts.
Local authorities had dispatched 1,000 firefighters, 151 fire trucks and a drone, fire official Zhou Tian said at a Thursday afternoon news conference. They evacuated three real estate developments and opened relief centers at 10 schools, added Zhang Yong, the Binhai New Area's district chief. The injured were being treated at 10 hospitals, he said. Hundreds of people have lined up to donate blood.
Experts have set up several air quality monitors to check for toxins and, according to official pronouncements, declared the air safe to breathe.
Yet at the scene, the rescue effort seemed beset by confusion. Police warned journalists near the site that the air was dangerous. But officers themselves wore only flimsy surgical masks, and a gang of street cleaners oddly dispatched to sweep the elevated highway had no protection.
Dozens of volunteers stood outside a primary school distributing masks, snacks and water. "We were supposed to help out in two shifts," said one, an employee of the American company Amway who had been there for hours. "But we just heard the fire was still on and it's not safe to be here any longer. The night shift people won't come."
On Thursday night, hundreds of people milled about on the street about two miles from the blast site; some said their homes were damaged, and they had nowhere to go.
Cellphone videos of the explosions -- and images captured by a Japanese weather satellite and shared on social media -- showed the skyline of gleaming high-rises silhouetted by the eruption of flame and smoke. State-run China Central Television said the two explosions had the force of 3 tons and 21 tons of TNT, enough to shatter windows and knock observers to the ground.
"Last night I was completely in shock," said a security guard at a residential building who gave his surname as Li. "Everyone ran out as quickly as they could"
The blasts happened around 11:30 Wednesday night at the Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics Co., which handles the shipping and transportation of hazardous materials, the Tianjin Public Security Bureau said.
According to the company's website, the facility covers about half a million square feet and includes several hazardous and dangerous goods warehouses. The company has about 70 full-time employees, it says, and handles a million tons of cargo a year.
Makinen reported from Tianjin and Kaiman from Beijing. Tommy Yang and Nicole Liu in The Times' Beijing bureau contributed to this report.
UPDATES
Aug 13, 4:52 a.m.: This article has been updated throughout with additional details and background.
11:17 p.m.: This article has been updated with the death toll rising to 44 and other details.
8:57 p.m.: This article has been updated with a report of 11 firefighters killed and other details.
6:26 p.m.: This article has been updated with additional details and background.
4:03 p.m.: This article has been updated with the death toll rising to at least 17, with more than 400 injured.
3:02 p.m.: This article has been updated with the death toll rising to 13 and other details.
2:25 p.m.: This article has been updated with information about the company where the explosion took place and other details.
1:45 p.m.: This article has been updated with at least seven deaths from the blast.
This story was originally published at on Aug. 12 at 1:18 p.m.
