A new fire erupted Saturday amid fresh explosions at the site of this week's deadly chemical warehouse blasts in the northeastern Chinese port of Tianjin, sending plumes of smoke into the air.
The flames were visible starting at 11:40 a.m. on Saturday and several small explosions also were heard. The latest blaze occurred shortly after local authorities announced Friday that the fire had been "basically extinguished."
Residents living near the site of Wednesday night's large warehouse explosions received an order to evacuate due to concerns about chemical pollutants in the air, the official Xinhua news agency reported Saturday.
Xinhua said the evacuation order affected residents living within a 3-kilometer (1.8-mile) radius of the site, although it later denied on Twitter that the government had issued the order.
The news agency said specialized anti-chemical warfare soldiers also entered the core area of the blast sites on Saturday to search for possible survivors and investigate the causes of the explosions.
It said the exact content of the containers at the warehouse, which is licensed to store dangerous chemicals, remains unknown.
But it added that Gao Huaiyou, deputy head of the Tianjin administrative bureau of work safety, told reporters that sodium cyanide may have been one of the chemicals being stored.
The task of identifying the content is complicated by the fact that the containers were not open and some were not even registered, Xinhua reported, citing Gao.
The death toll from the explosions currently stands at 85, while 25 people are listed as critically injured and 33 in serious condition.
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