Tests show survivor 'not poisoned'

Han Fengqun found at center of site 60 hours after accident

Han Fengqun, who was found at the center of the Tianjin blast site about 60 hours after the accident, is in stable condition and shows no signs of being poisoned by toxic chemicals, a doctor said on Sunday.

Han was rescued on Aug 15 and was in critical condition.

"We were worried that he might have been poisoned by the polluted air in the blast zone during those more than 60 hours. But we are glad that the blood and urine test results were both normal," said Xi Xiuming, head of the medical crew sent to Tianjin by the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

Xi added that after a few days of ups and downs, Han, a 56-year-old migrant worker from Henan province, now can eat some soft food and converse normally.

By Sunday, the blast on Aug 12 that destroyed a warehouse storing hazardous chemicals in the Tianjin Binhai New Area had claimed 123 lives and left 50 missing, according to Gong Jiansheng, a spokesman for the Tianjin information office.

Six hundred and twenty-four people are still hospitalized, of whom 12 are in critical condition.

Xi said many people had from burns and brain injuries, which pose a great challenge for treatment.

"But many of the country's best doctors in these areas have come to Tianjin and many of us have experience in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and last year's explosion in Kunshan," he said.

Deng Xiaowen, head of the Tianjin Environment Monitoring Center, said all the air and water outside the core zone were within in national standard, according to data collected at monitoring stations. However, cyanide levels at one spot in the core zone was 211 times higher than the national safety standard.

According to the municipal government's microblog on Saturday, some property developers have shown a willingness to buy the apartments affected by the accident.

The bank will also not punish those who have temporary difficulty in making mortgage payments due to the blasts, it said.

Several residential compounds are located within a 1-kilometer radius of the site. However, not all of them were listed in the safety assessment for Ruihai International Logistics Co, which owns the warehouse that exploded.

A safety assessment is part of the prerequisite for a company to acquire qualification to store and transport dangerous chemicals, which Ruihai was given in June.

The report was done by the Tianjin Zhongbin Haisheng Health and Safety Evaluation and Detection Co in February, and its validity was later confirmed by the Tianjin Research Institute for Water Transport Engineering of the Ministry of Transportation.

The report was not released until Friday on the Zhongbin Haisheng website, which had been inaccessible immediately after the deadly blasts.

On Saturday night, one person was killed and nine others were injured after a blast ripped through a chemical plant in East China's Shandong province, local authorities said.

The explosion occurred at Shandong Runxing Chemical Technology Co in Huantai county after a separator in the plant started a fire, which was put out at about 1:50 am.