Tianjin, China: A series of enormous explosions at an industrial area in the Chinese port of Tianjin killed at least 17 people and injured hundreds, state media reported Thursday, unleashing a fireball that ripped through the night sky.
An AFP reporter at the scene saw shattered glass up to three kilometres (two miles) from the blast site, after a shipment of explosives detonated in a warehouse, raining debris on the city and starting huge fires.
Images showed a monumental blast soaring into the air, walls of flame enveloping buildings, ranks of burned-out cars, and shipping containers scattered like children´s building blocks.
Paramedics stretchered the wounded into the city´s hospitals as doctors bandaged up victims, many of them covered in blood after the impact of the explosion was felt for several kilometres, even being picked up by a Japanese weather satellite.
“The fireball was huge, maybe as much as 100 metres tall,” said 27-year-old Huang Shiting, who lives close to the site.
“I heard the first explosion and everyone went outside, then there was a series of more explosions, windows shattered and a lot of people who were inside were hurt and came running out, bleeding,” he told AFP.
Images obtained by AFP showed residents, some partially clothed, running for shelter on a street strewn with debris.
State broadcaster CCTV said 17 people were killed and more than 400 injured. According to the official news agency Xinhua, 32 were in critical condition.
Nine firefighters were among the dead, CCTV said, and others were missing.
At a hospital in the city a doctor wept over the remains of a firefighter still in uniform, his skin blackened from smoke, as he was wheeled by along with two other bodies.
Scores of firefighters were already on the scene before the explosion, responding to reports of a fire.