Tianjin

Thanks to the severe explosion, Tianjin made the headlines of numerous international media outlets for the first time.

The explosion at the port area of Tianjin woke up the whole city at midnight. Some people even thought it was an earthquake. It is fortunate that the striken area is thinly populated. However, the blast still claimed over 50 lives including 12 firefighters, with 700 people hospitalized.

Two things are critical after a devastating accident: how the rescue effort is carried out, and how the incident is reported. I wil mainly concentrate on the latter part.

Rumours went viral after the severe blast: one called on citizens to close windows and stated that the subsequent rain would be hazardous due to its combination with the leaking cyanide; the other claimed the air pollutants in Tianjin were moving to Beijing. They were both proved false.

The public was so anxious to know the truth that they easily believed everything claimed to be true. At the critical moment, it is very necessary to prevent the second disaster caused by rumours and public panic. (1)

A very interesting news item/(-or-a very interesting example) concerned a CNN correspondent, who reported in front of a hospital using his phone and was later violently interrupted by the grieving relatives and friends of the dead and the injured. At the very beginning, CNN stated that it was "officials" who interrupted the reporting.

When the news came out, some Chinese netizens criticized the local government for its backwardness and anti-openness because they disallowed foreign reporting. But it turned out that the "casual" reporting behaviour was in itself disrespectful to the victims and thus irritated the victims' family. It reminded me of previous incidents (2) involving both local and foreign people, in which case Chinese netizens seemed to be accustomed to standing by the foreign side. This actually revealed again the big issue of distrust between our people and government.

Even now, people are doubting the air and water quality indicators released by the government, thinking that they have been largely underestimated. But in fact, a large part of the data was collected by professionals from local universities and their team. They have worked day and night since the accident (3), but it was a pity that local media failed to note this cooperation between governments and people.

Finally, according to my chemistry friend, it was lucky that the sodium cyanide in the explosion didn't come into contact with a strong acid. Otherwise, the city could have been razed.

(1) This depends on what you want to convey. If you are only referring to the incident in Tianjin, you would use past tense: At this critical moment, it was necessary to prevent a second disaster caused by rumours and public panic

(2) Accidents are something that doesn't happen intentionally. Incidents is better here, because it includes everything that happens between local and foreign people, both intentional and unintentional

(3) When you use 'since', you usually have to use the word, 'have' before the verb