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[Piecake]

TIANJIN, China — One partner was the son of a local police chief, the other an executive at a state-run chemicals firm. After meeting at a dinner party, they started a company here to handle the export of the most dangerous chemicals made in China, promising “outstanding service” and “good results.”

Now, more than two weeks after explosions at its warehouses leveled a swath of that district, killing 145 people, injuring more than 700 and leaving millions here fearful of toxic fallout, Rui Hai has become a symbol of something else for many Chinese: the high cost of rapid industrialization in a closed political system rife with corruption.

As much as 3,000 tons of hazardous chemicals were stored at Rui Hai on the night of the explosions, including 700 tons of sodium cyanide, deadly in a dose of less than a tablespoon, and 1,300 tons of fertilizer nitrates, more than 500 times the amount used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

“We had no idea it was a warehouse for dangerous goods,” said Quan Li, 25, a firefighter who was buried under debris when the fire department’s building collapsed in the blasts. Speaking by phone from a hospital bed, he said the department had drafted a risk-management plan this year that identified the most dangerous sites in the port.

Rui Hai, he said, was not on the map.

Former clients said they began using Rui Hai as early as February 2014. But it was not until May 4, 2014, that the Tianjin Transportation and Port Administration issued a temporary permit allowing the company to store and ship hazardous chemicals.

The license was effective retroactively, beginning April 16, and good for six months. At the bottom, it was marked, “This document is not to be made public.” On Thursday, prosecutors said they were investigating the officials responsible for issuing the license, including the director of the transportation administration.

When that license expired, Rui Hai continued handling chemicals without one. “We didn’t cease operations because we didn’t think it was a problem,” Mr. Yu told Xinhua. “Many other companies have continued working without a license.”

Rui Hai may have been granted only a temporary license in 2014 because it had not yet obtained a safety certification, a process that the port administration outsources to private companies.

Ma Jun, a prominent Chinese environmental activist, said these safety consultants routinely skew their findings to satisfy corporate clients. “It’s hard to stay in this business without compromises,” he said.

The first company approached by Rui Hai declined to take the job, citing the facility’s proximity to the residential complex, Mr. Dong said in the Xinhua interview. But Rui Hai shopped around, and found another firm, one that corporate records show is affiliated with the Ministry of Public Security. That relationship has led some Chinese journalists to describe it as a “red-hat intermediary,” or a firm set up by officials to extract payments from businesses.

In a report issued in February 2015, the company overstated the distance between Rui Hai and the apartment buildings, the rail station and highways by hundreds of yards and asserted that it was in compliance with national standards.

It added that Rui Hai had “established a rather sound safety management system.” Four months later, Rui Hai received a new permit to handle hazardous chemicals, good for three years.

That is rather disturbing since it is a massive conflict of interest.

The sodium cyanide arrived at Rui Hai in wooden crates, hundreds every month, each marked “TOXIC” with an imprint of a skull and bones. The material was headed to mines around the world to extract gold from rock, but it was as deadly as the cyanide used in the Nazi gas chambers.

Storing and shipping sodium cyanide was one of Rui Hai’s specialties. This summer, it had received an especially large shipment — 700 tons, enough to fill 35 shipping containers. But the company was authorized to store only 10 tons at a time, according to the 2013 environmental assessment.

Former clients said Rui Hai executives were willing to sidestep safety measures aimed at reducing the risk of accidents and often boasted of their ability to overcome bureaucratic hurdles.

A year earlier, the stockpile was even larger. A routine safety inspection in June 2014 found 4,261 tons of hazardous chemicals. There is no indication regulators objected.

Experts say storing such large quantities of chemicals at one site is dangerous, because it heightens the risk of an explosive reaction and can exacerbate the damage caused by any fire.

“It’s an incredible amount,” said Neal Langerman, a chemical safety consultant in San Diego. “If you’re going to have large quantities, you really have to do it right. If you do it right, it costs you money.”

Chinese regulations require that hazardous chemicals be kept in well-ventilated areas, far from sunlight, power cords and other heat sources. But Rui Hai’s warehouses were known for shoddy construction and outdated equipment, people involved in shipping chemicals from the warehouse said.

Chemicals are also supposed to be stored separately and at safe distances to reduce the risk of reactions. But Rui Hai often crammed containers full of different dangerous chemicals next to each other, former clients said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/31/w...t-flouted-regulations-and-reaped-profits.html

Read the article. It is quite good and quite long, so this is barely a snippet. The article states that consultants, professors, other groups,etc did warn the government that they had a dangerous situation going on, and specifically pointed to the the neighborhood of the blast as well.

It also discusses China's industrial safety record, which is terrible. 68k people die a year in industrial accidents and half of the chemical plants in China were violating safety regulations by being too close to residential areas.

 

[cameron]

68k people die a year in industrial accidents and half of the chemical plants in China were violating safety regulations by being too close to residential areas.

The catastrophe in Tianjin has stunned a nation inured to living with one of the worst industrial safety records in the world. By the government’s own count, more than 68,000 people were killed in such accidents last year — nearly 200 every day, most of them poor, powerless and far from China’s boom towns.

Caught me off guard. That's just insane. Tried finding the stats for the U.S., and it seems to be about 4.5k a year (workplace fatalities) in comparison.

The quote from the firefighter who survived is also frustrating shit:

“We had no idea it was a warehouse for dangerous goods,” said Quan Li, 25, a firefighter who was buried under debris when the fire department’s building collapsed in the blasts. Speaking by phone from a hospital bed, he said the department had drafted a risk-management plan this year that identified the most dangerous sites in the port.

Rui Hai, he said, was not on the map.

 

[Gattsu25]

The quote from the firefighter who survived is also frustrating shit:

Yeah, that quote floored me

 

[F!ReW!Re]

From someone who's living in China; none of this is surprising.
If you know the right people and got money here, you can do whatever the fuck you want.
Not saying that isn't the case in other countries, but they take it to new levels here.

 

[Piecake]

Caught me off guard. That's just insane. Tried finding the stats for the U.S., and it seems to be about 4.5k a year (workplace fatalities) in comparison.

The quote from the firefighter who survived is also frustrating shit:

Yeah, that quote floored me

Yea, I don't think that is too surprising when the actual company can shop around for the best safety report. Some company is going to pop up that doesnt give a shit about safety and is just out to make a buck. That safety report then goes to the government, the local government, Tianjin at the very least, rubber stamps it, and then fire fighters and other emergency responders have no idea what they are dealing with when an accident happens.

It is like the ratings agency and wall st, but with much more deadly consequences.

 

[shaowebb]

As an industrial man and as more importantly A HUMAN FUCKING BEING I am sickened to my very core at everything I just read. I hope China's industry gets raked over with a spotlight and public scrutiny for decades to force better practices. This isn't a get rich quick game. Lives can be lost, people can be hurt, communities can be ruined, and families can be devastated by folks treating chemical hazards and practices like its something they can handshake and bargain away at. You do it at all then you do it right. If you aren't prepared for that responsibility and cost then get the fuck out.

So fucking mad and disgusted right now.

 

[Zophar]

Sounds about right. China is basically the libertarian free market dream in practice.

 

[F!ReW!Re]

This isn't a get rich quick game. Lives can be lost, people can be hurt, communities can be ruined, and families can be devastated by folks treating chemical hazards and practices like its something they can handshake and bargain away at. You do it at all then you do it right. If you aren't prepared for that responsibility and cost then get the fuck out.

So fucking mad and disgusted right now.

You're ofcourse totally right, but this;

I hope China's industry gets raked over with a spotlight and public scrutiny for decades to force better practices.

Ain't gonna happen anytime soon I'm afraid. There's just too much money to be made and they don't give a shit about what's "proper".

 

[xbhaskarx]

The state will execute a few officials for corruption, and nothing will change.

 

[bobbytkc]

It seems to me that the regulations are in place to prevent this, but lax enforcement and corruption allowed it to happen.

 

[BladeoftheImmortal]

Par for the course for this country. I'm living next to a small factory, myself. No telling what's in there that's being done illegally to save money.

As an industrial man and as more importantly A HUMAN FUCKING BEING I am sickened to my very core at everything I just read. I hope China's industry gets raked over with a spotlight and public scrutiny for decades to force better practices. This isn't a get rich quick game. Lives can be lost, people can be hurt, communities can be ruined, and families can be devastated by folks treating chemical hazards and practices like its something they can handshake and bargain away at. You do it at all then you do it right. If you aren't prepared for that responsibility and cost then get the fuck out.

So fucking mad and disgusted right now.

lives of the poor mean less here than in America. They don't give two shits who dies, here, as long as it's not a celebrity or high ranking official.

 

[hydragonwarrior]

I'm concerned about the potential toxic fallout - how is it expected to return to the city? Via rain?

 

[Cat Party]

Reading that, it's surprising the death toll wasn't even higher.