Breaking | Pope prays for victims as death toll from Tianjin blasts escalates, evacuation rumours swirl

Some residents were told to stay indoors or voluntarily left temporary shelters due to changes in the wind direction, amid lingering concerns about a chemical contamination in the industrial zone.

Despite rumours and news reports that an evacuation had been enacted for a radius of up to 3 kilometres, a government official in Tianjin denied that this was the case. 

Meanwhile, seven or eight fresh blasts caused new fires to break out at the facility in the port city of Tianjin earlier in the day, the state news agency Xinhua reported. It did not give details about the scale of the latest explosions.

As the list of casualties count continued to grow, the Pope offered prayers in Rome for the victims and their families.

As of Saturday 10pm, the official body count from the disaster had risen to 104.

"Those who have lost their lives as well as all those touched by this catastrophe are in my prayers," Pope Francis said during angelus prayers at St  Peter's in Rome during the Catholic Feast of the Assumption, which marks Christ's mother Mary's ascent to heaven.