Four big questions Chinese people want answered following deadly Tianjin blasts

A week has passed since the deadly explosions in the city of Tianjin, but government authorities are still struggling to answer a slew of questions in the aftermath of the tragedy.

The state news agency Xinhua has published a report asking four questions, which it said the public were most concerned about, as it tried to shed some light on the cause of the explosions which have killed at least 114 people. But Xinhua said its conclusions did not represent the official findings.

1. What caused the explosions?

An official at Ruihai International Logistics, which owns the warehouse in the port area of the city where containers of hazardous chemicals were being stored at the time of last Wednesday’s blasts, has said that chemicals stored in the containers may have exceeded safety limits.

This may have led to increased pressure forcing open a valve on top of the containers housing the chemicals, Xinhua reported.

Any release of chemicals could then have led to them catching fire, causing ammonium nitrate, a chemical that produces toxic fumes and exacerbates combustion of materials found in other chemicals, which then led to the explosions.

Several management officials at Ruihai recalled that there were at least “20 to 30 containers” filled with nitrate chemicals at the scene of the fire, each holding about 20 tonnes.