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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: 1, Informative) by Francis on Sunday August 16 2015, @03:03PM
China isn't a civilized society in that regard. I lived there for 16 months and I don't recall ever having seen a single person learning from a mistake. I left and won't be going back any time soon speciifically because the foreigners are responsible for basically everything even when incompetent, racist managers can't be bothered to do their job. It's the Confucian culture. The people who make the decisions rarely see what the results of those decisions are. So you see people make the same mistakes over and over and over again because they can't put 2 and 2 together.
It's the main reason why I support them executing the top level executives involved. The younger Chinese are a bit smarter, but it's probably going to take generations before the school induced ADHD leaves their society.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday August 16 2015, @04:59PM
That's very interesting. There was a BBC TV programme this week about an experiment where some British school kids were taught for a month by some highly-regarded Chinese teachers. The kids ran rings around the teachers.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Sunday August 16 2015, @08:12PM
Things are changing, I had some students who had been fortunate enough to go to classes that are more western in nature. Where they had to talk to each other in class, but in general for all the change, the schools are mostly stuck in the 12th century (or earlier) with very little changed since then.
Traditionally, the teacher has the knowledge and the students copy it. They're judged primarily on speed and accuracy, with no points at all for creativity or anything cross-domain . Things are changing, but the extreme level of top down thinking remains pervasive and the government has no incentive to discourage that way of doing things.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday August 17 2015, @08:04PM
Here's the programme about the Chinese teachers teaching British teenagers [bbc.co.uk]. Very revealing.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].