Aug 22, 2015– Just as people were somehow adjusting to the news of the Tianjin warehouse explosion and its horrible aftermath, today came another incident of a chemical warehouse explosion, this time in Shandong province in China. It is apparently located in Zibo county and is just 1 Km away from a residential area.
BREAKING: Chemical warehouse in Shandong exploded on Sat. Firefighters are at the site now pic.twitter.com/DdZ5o3k4sk
— People’s Daily,China (@PDChina) August 22, 2015
News reports (unconfirmed), say that this warehouse too, was storing high quantities of hazardous chemicals such as adiponitrile, which the US CDC says can cause “irritation eyes, skin, respiratory system; headache, dizziness, lassitude (weakness, exhaustion), confusion, convulsions; blurred vision; dyspnea (breathing difficulty); abdominal pain, nausea, [and] vomiting.
Large flames can be seen even from a large distance. The earlier week’s Tianjin explosion caused about 116 fatalities and several hundred, (more than 700) people injured. The toxic waste from the blast site is going to be a herculean task to clear up and decontaminate.
This is still a developing story and we do not have more details other than the info above. But one thing is clear, warehouse safety should be taken much more seriously than the lip service being paid to it in today’s world of cost cutting and a lackadaisical attitude to safety.