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Common Dreams reports:
The death toll from this week's fiery explosions at the Chinese port of Tianjin climbed above 100 on Saturday, while confusion spread over whether authorities had ordered the evacuation of everyone within two miles amid fears of chemical contamination.
[...] Anti-chemical warfare troops have entered the site, according to the BBC.
[...] Two Chinese news outlets, including the state-run The Paper, reported that the warehouse was storing 700 tons of sodium cyanide--70 times more than it should have been holding at one time--and that authorities were rushing to clean it up.
Sodium cyanide is a toxic chemical that can form a flammable gas upon contact with water.
[...] "The company that owned the warehouse where the blasts originated, Rui Hai International Logistics, appears to have violated Chinese law by operating close to apartment buildings and worker dormitories", journalist Andrew Jacobs reports for [NYTimes] (paywall). "Residents say they were unaware that the company was handling dangerous materials."
About 6,300 people have been displaced by the blasts, with around 721 injured and 33 in serious condition, Xinhua news agency said. At least 21 firefighters are reported dead.
Related: Large Warehouse Explosions Injure 300-400 in Tianjin, China
For the adulterated baby formula abuses of 2008 (4 infants dead; 12,892 hospitalized), 2 people were executed. One wonders what will come of this case.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @01:45PM
In China, generally speaking, everybody is violating some laws and regulations all the time. That is OK. It only becomes a problem when either something bad happens, or when you piss off someone important.
My experience in how things worked there where very different from how things usually go in NW Europe (it happens there as well, but on a much smaller scale).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @02:19PM
Is there going to be torture and finger chopping?!??!?!!?!?!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @02:20PM
70 times more than it should have been holding at one time
The regulations are there, but not enforced. The governments can sit and make regulations all they want, but without a solid system to enforce them, its useless.
Think of speeding laws on roads: Many people won't give a crap about them if they are not enforced in some way. (not that I agree with speeding laws)
...abuses of 2008, 2 people were executed. One wonders what will come of this case
A few more will get executed, but it won't stop others from doing the same thing. Capital punishment never stopped criminals from committing murder. Profit-seekers will continue to seek profit by any and all means if there is no oversight. This is also one of the reasons you should never eat anything made or packed in China.
Over-regulation kills business, but non-enforcement of regulation kills the people.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday August 17 2015, @04:17PM
> it won't stop others from doing the same thing.
It will just remind them to funnel their cash offshore and keep the jet ready for a quick exit when bad things happen.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16 2015, @08:58PM
> In China, generally speaking, everybody is violating some laws and regulations all the time. That is OK.
Corruption breeds more corruption. When 'everybody' is breaking the law, nobody wants to work with the 'goody two-shoes' who isn't breaking the law because it makes them feel vulnerable. If everybody is ditry they all have something to lose, but that one clean guy, nobody has leverage on him and you never know if he'll try to rat you out for competitive advantage or just out of spite. Ironic that the non-corrupt become targets of suspicion and distrust. In this way, once corruption reaches a tipping point it becomes self-perpetuating.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gnuman on Monday August 17 2015, @01:32AM
In China, generally speaking, everybody is violating some laws and regulations all the time. That is OK. It only becomes a problem when either something bad happens, or when you piss off someone important.
Couldn't that be said about most places on earth?
For example, US has so many laws, that most people are breaking some at some point in time. And nothing happens, unless you piss off someone important or something bad happens, then you get 10-concurrent felonies for crossing the street not on cross-walk.
For business examples, look at the Deepwater Horizon 2010 oil spill in Gulf of Mexico. Multiple regulations were also ignored and nothing happened, until something bad happened.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Monday August 17 2015, @08:44AM
>Couldn't that be said about most places on earth?
Yes. But my personal experience suggest that it is simply worse in China. Have never visited the VS though, so perhaps its the same there.
Also, I have been put in a position in China that no matter how I resolved the situation, I would break a law.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Monday August 17 2015, @08:04PM
Also, I have been put in a position in China that no matter how I resolved the situation, I would break a law.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu [wikiquote.org]
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
and this most likely predates him by many millennia.
For an example in US where your situation was (is?) endemic - in Florida with drug enforcement police.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/undercover-cops-florida-city-make-millions-selling-cocaine/story?id=20523714 [go.com]
There were cases when sheriffs were short for their "prison labor", so they colluded with judges to convict innocent passerbys of crimes just so they get money for their labor on farms. (sorry, can't find the link at this time). This actually went on for years until justice department started investigating.
Drive with cash? Oops, cash is gone.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/26/the-forfeiture-racket [reason.com]
The difference is that in China this is slightly more prominent, although there are efforts to eradicate this type of corruption. In Russia, on the other hand .... well, maybe stay in China instead.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Tuesday August 18 2015, @08:18AM
Still, I like to think that in Europe, we left the days of said Cardinal behind us. These are generalizations obviously.
I also want to add that the 'corruption' in China often worked in my favor. I was very appreciated, and thus if I wanted something, someone would make it happen. This allowed things to proceed quickly and efficient, but I doubt it was always fair.
For example, in one case, I mentioned a person did not qualify as he was to old, but I was told by the government official that for my case, that rule could be ignored. Research funding (I work in academia) requires like in the EU and US, a written proposal. However, in China, meetings between delegates of Institutes and Universities (i.e. not the people who do the research) and officials in Beijing influenced the selection procedure significantly (with more powerful institutes or politically important delegates having more influence).
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Friday August 21 2015, @05:27PM
You make some interesting posts. I don't think you're remotely right but I'm glad you wrote what you did because I think a lot of people would say something akin to what you did even though they're unlikely to have your experience from China.
Written proposals, or contracts, guarantees, laws, or even “supreme court” rulings don't neccessarily make any difference as to who or what is funded or at what level or who gets away with what and often doesn't seem to make any difference at all (good luck trying to get a government to follow a ruling against it unless you're “powerful” or “connected”, I know how that “works” from personal experience). Your description of China sounds exactly like the supposedly well run “super duper democratic” country I live in (northern Europe) and everywhere else.
/Except/ you make the Chinese seem more honest (!) (and even though they're probably not) about not following their own rules and less regimental about how things actually work. And of course they did it because they like you i.e. whatever you did was something they wanted, possibly desperately.
The fantasy of somehow being better is kind of strange considering how governments as well as everyone trying to do anything is always openly talking (or even “shouting”) about the importance of “networking”. Just what do you suppose that “networking” is? I can tell you it has nothing to do with writing proposals (formalities for the most part) and everything to do with scratching backs and trading favors (including criminal ones) and maybe some payback or mutual/reciprocal sharing of future endeavors. Sometimes some idiot involved actually takes straight cash but since that's so obvious and comparatively easy to unravel it's rare, only criminals are that dumb or only the dumb are/become criminals :P
Hopefully you work in something like physics¹ but have a close look at all the academic research that gets funded in the US and Europe that is nothing but advanced covert corruption and pay for fudged or obfuscated “correct” results: it's epidemic, governments and political parties do it just as often if not more so as private entities do, often they do it together or through each other, often we're talking about exactly the same people anyway and the only difference is what role they're wearing at that moment.
¹ Although if you work in HEP then don't kid yourself about ITER and other megaprojects like it. Massive spending == massive corruption.
All that aside (and more towards the original topic rather than a reply to your posts) consider Euopean and US examples of things blowing sky high; it's not uncommon at all with fuel trains/freight of hazardous chemicals (more than four in the last year or so? Not counting other lethal derailments nor the ones without casualties), firework factories/storage (at least three), fuel depots (at least one huge one in England not that long ago), chemical plants, and that's just from memory of the recent years. Once in a while there is also the odd workplace accident (deaths in industrial ovens and smelters come to mind from recent news) which I guess only make the news when they're extremely disturbing. And of course there's the whole US CDC/bio-labs nightmare. Sure this Chinese tragedy is bigger than usual but similar things are not at all uncommon “here” either.
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