TIANJIN, Aug 13 : Enormous explosions at a chemical warehouse in a major Chinese port city killed at least 50 people and injured more than 700, official media said on Thursday, leaving a devastated landscape of incinerated cars, toppled shipping containers and burnt-out buildings.
An AFP reporter in Tianjin saw shattered glass up to three kilometres (two miles) from the site of the blast, a storage facility for dangerous goods where the detonation unleashed a vast fireball that dwarfed towers in the area, lit up the night sky and rained debris on the city.
The explosion was felt several kilometres away, even being picked up by a Japanese weather satellite, and images showed walls of flame enveloping buildings and rank after rank of gutted cars at an import facility.
"When I felt the explosion I thought it was an earthquake," resident Zhang Zhaobo told AFP. "I ran to my father
and I saw the sky was already red.
All the glass was broken, and I was really afraid."     ?AFP