Taste for luxury: Ethiopia's new elite spur housing boom

Yahoo – AFP, Justine Boulo, December 2, 2015

Large villas are seen at a new housing development on the outskirts of Addis
 Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia White fences and manicured lawns surround the
 villas of an elegant housing estate in Ethiopia, a potent symbol of the emerging elite
 in a country better known for drought and famine. Just 10 years ago, the affluent
suburb of Yerrer View was little more than fields. Today, imposing villas with
pillars stand behind neatly-trimmed oleander hedges. (AFP Photo/Zacharias Abubeker)

Addis Ababa (AFP) - White fences and manicured lawns surround the villas of an elegant housing estate in Ethiopia, a potent symbol of the emerging elite in a country better known for drought and famine.

Just 10 years ago, the affluent suburb of Yerrer View was little more than fields. Today, imposing villas with pillars stand behind neatly-trimmed oleander hedges.

A comfortable commuting distance of 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa, the 600-hectare (1,500-acre) estate has tapped into a growing taste for high-end luxury among wealthy Ethiopians, who are looking for a home which reflects their success in business.

Over the past decade, this Horn of Africa nation has seen an annual growth rate of nearly 10 percent, World Bank figures show, due to a boom in construction, manufacturing, trade and agriculture.

For those in Africa's second most populous country who are enjoying that growth, the estate symbolises much more than a home.

"We are selling a lifestyle more than just housing," says Haile Mesele, a civil engineer who heads Country Club Developers, the property firm behind the development.

"We don't do any advertising. We prefer that the residents themselves spread the news, and in a way, chose their own neighbours," he said.

According to a recent study by New World Wealth (NWW), a South Africa-based market research consultancy, there are now 2,700 millionaires in Ethiopia, reflecting an increase of 108 percent between 2007 and 2013 -- the fastest growth rate in Africa.

"There is a demand for luxury real estate," said Wunmi Osholake, who runs the Ethiopian branch of online real estate platform Lamudi, which focuses on emerging markets, with customers eyeing property costing over $330,000.

The price, she adds, has no upper limit.

A new Manhattan?

And the luxury boom is not just in the suburbs.

In the centre of Addis Ababa, the bustling Kazanchis business district is also undergoing major renovations.

Eighteen months ago, May Real Estate Development began a new residential development called the Addis Gojo project, which incorporates 113 apartments in three 10-storey towers located near several embassies.

"For those working for the UN or diplomats, it is very central. The district is a new sort of Manhattan," says project manager Bitania Ephfrem.

"The lifts work, which is not the case elsewhere," says Bitania, adding they are planning rooftop swimming pools, a gym and a restaurant "so that residents don't need to leave the premises."

A standard apartment between 140-170 square metres (1,500-1,800 square feet) rents for about $1800 per month (1700 euros).

Villas for locals

Such luxury housing has been designed to meet the needs of Ethiopia's emerging new middle class. At the estate in Yerrer View, hundreds of the homes from stand-alone villas to modern apartments are already occupied with plans for a total of 5,400 houses for some 20,000 people.

When completed, the estate will also include a golf course, a five-star spa hotel, a shopping centre, school and clinic and an organic farm covering about 200 hectares.

"When we began, economic growth wasn't very strong," recalls Haile. "Half of our clients came from the diaspora. But since then, the economy has become a lot stronger and nearly 85 percent of our residents are local."

The customers have high expectations. Pushing open the door, Mesele shows off a 500 square metre (5380 square foot) property built on a plot measuring 1,000 square metres.

A large open plan kitchen and a curved imitation-marble staircase leads up to the first floor where there are three bedrooms, all en-suite.

The master bedroom has a fireplace and a dressing room, while the bathroom has "an open space in case the owners want to install a sauna," he explains.

All that remains is to install surveillance cameras able to read a licence plate before opening the gate, smoke detectors and a security system.

And the price tag? $400,000 (377,000 euros) -- a fortune in a country where the gross domestic product per capita is $565.

"No matter what we build, it will always be too little to meet demand," he says.

But others have spotted the growing demand, with several other sites popping up nearby.

Labour challenge

Since the overthrow of a Marxist junta in 1991, Ethiopia's political and economic situation has stabilised, although rights groups have criticised the government for suppressing opposition.

The economy is still heavily dependent on agriculture, especially coffee, with the vast majority of the country's workers involved in that sector.

Meeting the demand for new housing has called for bringing in foreign workers as Ethiopia lacks a skilled work force.

Haile said his firm recruited around a thousand specialist workers from China.

Yoseph Mebratu, the major shareholder in May Real Estate Development, also complains that he had to import 70 percent of raw materials.

"Windows, doors, wood panelling... everything comes from China," he told AFP, adding that taxes are "very heavy."

Inflation, which hit a record 64.2 percent in July 2008 but has since stabilised at around 13 percent, has also caused delays.

"We had to slow down our business and missed deadlines... but since last year, we have become profitable again," Mesele added.

Strong public health message on UN World Toilet Day

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been leading calls for improved sanitation on World Toilet Day. Billions still suffer from a lack of proper toilets and the accompanying, heightened risk of serious illness.

Deutsche Welle, 19 Nov 2015

The United Nations says 2.4 billion people around the world don't have access to decent sanitation and more than a billion are forced to defecate out in the open. The world's population is currently just under 7.5 billion.

The UN launched World Toilet Day (19.11.2015) with a strong public health message. Poor sanitation, it said, increases the risk of illness and malnutrition, especially for children.

The UN also said that women and girls in particular need safe, clean facilities.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that one in three women around the world had no access to safe toilets. "As a result they face disease, shame and potential violence when they seek a place to defecate."

In Ghana's Northern region, it's estimated that seven out of ten people - men, women and children - have no access to toilet facilities, neither in their home nor in public spaces.

But some people who have access to public toilets prefer the bush. "Inside the toilet it is always hot, it is better to consider the forest. Also they don't keep them clean. That's the main reason why I won't use a public toilet," one man in Tamale told DW.

DW visited a public toilet in Tamale where people pay a small gratuity. It was in a filthy condition.

"Toilets can't always be cleaned. Sometimes the caretaker will have additional work somewhere else so he has no time to keep things clean," the toilet attendant said.

Ban Ki-moon:'We have a moral
imperative to end open defecation'

An estimated 18,000 Ghanaians, including 5,000 children under the age of five, die every year from ailments related to poor sanitation.

Convention and customs?

The UN Millennium Development Goals, which are supposed to be achieved this year, call for the halving of the proportion of the population without access to basic sanitation.

Ban said that by many accounts, this will be "the most-missed target."

In 2013, the UN launched a campaign to end defecation in the open by 2025. In sub-Sharan Africa, 36 percent of the population were not using toilets in 1990. Twenty-five years later that figure now stands at 25 percent.

In a World Toilet Day press release, the UN says open defecation is deeply rooted in poverty, but has also been linked to convention and customs in some countries and societies. It represents some of the only times other than worship where women from rigid family circumstances may meet one another.

Maxwell Suuk in Tamale contributed to this report.

Pakistan factory collapse kills 16, traps dozens

A factory collapse near Lahore, Pakistan has left at least 16 people dead. Dozens more remain trapped beneath the rubble.

Deutsche Welle, 4 Nov 2015

At least 16 people have been reported dead, while dozens remained trapped in the rubble of a building that collapsed on Wednesday near eastern city of Lahore in Pakistan.

The factory is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Lahore.

Officials have confirmed that 16 bodies have been recovered from the building. Rescue crews are working to remove debris to find potential survivors, but are taking care not to cause a further collapse.

The chief administrator of Lahore, Mohamed Usman, said "there might be dead among them," referring to those still trapped in the rubble. He added that around 80 people had been pulled out alive and taken to area hospitals for treatment.

The building was three stories tall, and construction was underway on a fourth story when it collapsed. At the moment, there is no official cause for the collapse. However, last week a 7.5-magnitude earthquake shook Pakistan , killing nearly 300 people there.

Industrial accidents are not unheard of in Pakistan. A garment fire at a facility in Karachi in 2012 killed over 250 people, one of the worst disasters of its kind in a country with shaky standards when it comes to the construction and maintenance of buildings.

mz/rc (Reuters, AP)

Cabinet to discuss prefab homes for refugees

DutchNews, October 9, 2015

The Dutch government will hold an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the use of prefab homes to house asylum seekers. 

Prime minister Mark Rutte, just returned from a trade mission to the US, junior justice minister Klaas Dijkhoff, social affairs minister Lodewijk Asscher and home affairs minister Ronald Plasterk will discuss the housing crisis with local government association VNG and representatives from the provinces. 

The aim is to avoid a repetition of the scenes on Wednesday in the Drenthe village of Oranje when angry locals blocked roads to prevent more asylum seekers arriving after a commitment to limit refugee numbers was broken. 

Approval

Currently, 13,000 refugees have approval to stay in the Netherlands but are still living in asylum seeker centres because of the lack of social housing. And because they cannot be moved on, emergency accommodation for refugees is also filling up fast. 

The government is now working on a plan to build prefab and container homes. If all the local councils agree to provide land, 23,000 ’emergency’ homes can be built within two weeks, according to the VNG.

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Saudi king sanctions Binladin firm over pre-hajj tragedy

Yahoo – AFP, Ian Timberlake, 15 Sep 2015

Workers stand next to a crane that collapsed at the Grand Mosque in Saudi 

Arabia's holy Muslim city of Mecca, September 12, 2015 (AFP Photo)

Riyadh (AFP) - Saudi Arabia's King Salman sanctioned the powerful Saudi Binladin Group Tuesday over the collapse of a construction crane at Mecca's Grand Mosque, which killed more than 100 people days before the hajj pilgrimage.

An investigative commission had concluded that the company "was in part responsible" for Friday's tragedy, which killed at least 107 people and injured almost 400 during a severe thunderstorm accompanied by violent winds.

A picture provided by the Saudi Press

Agency on September 12, 2015 shows

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz (C)

holding the hand of an injured pilgrim

at a hospital in Mecca (AFP Photo)

The company had not "respected the norms of safety" at the site, the official Saudi Press Agency said.

The firm's executives have been forbidden from leaving the kingdom pending the completion of legal action against the company, SPA said.

During the same period, the company will also be excluded from new public projects.

The construction firm belongs to the family of the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

It had been working for four years on a 400,000-square-metre (4.3-million-square-feet) enlargement of the Grand Mosque, to accommodate increasing numbers of pilgrims.

That is the equivalent of more than 50 football pitches, and will allow the complex -- Islam's holiest site -- to accommodate roughly two million people at once.

After visiting the scene of the tragedy Saturday, Salman vowed to reveal what happened.

It was the worst accident in a decade surrounding the hajj, which begins Tuesday and is expected to draw about two million faithful from around the world.

Hundreds of thousands had already converged on the Grand Mosque when the red and white crane, one of several overlooking the site, crashed into a courtyard.

Muslim pilgrims pose for pictures in front of the crane that collapsed at the Grand

 Mosque in Saudi Arabia's holy Muslim city of Mecca, September 14, 2015

(AFP Photo)

Saudis, Iranians, Nigerians, Malaysians, Indonesians and Indians and were among the dead.

'Act of God'

Officials say the tragedy will have no effect on preparations for the hajj, one of the world's largest religious events.

An engineer with Saudi Binladin Group told AFP Saturday that what happened was an "act of God" and not the result of a technical fault.

The crane, like many others on the project, had been there for three or four years without any problem, he said.

"It was not a technical issue at all," said the engineer, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"I can only say that what happened was beyond the power of humans. It was an act of God and, to my knowledge, there was no human fault in it at all."

Muslim pilgrims walk around the Kaaba at the Grand Mosque on September 14, 

2015 in Mecca, Saudi Arabia (AFP Photo)

The engineer said the crane was the main one used on work to expand the tawaf, or circumambulation area around the Kaaba -- a massive cubed structure at the centre of the mosque that is the focal point of Muslim worship.

"It has been installed in a way so as not to affect the hundreds of thousands of worshippers in the area and in an extremely professional way," he said of the crane.

"This is the most difficult place to work in, due to the huge numbers of people in the area."

The crane's heavy hook, which is able to lift hundreds of tonnes, began swaying and moved the whole crane with it, toppling into the mosque, the engineer explained.

Related Article:

Hajj to go ahead after Mecca crane collapse kills 107

Hajj to go ahead after Mecca crane collapse kills 107

Yahoo – AFP, Kamal Idris, 12 Sep 2015

A picture taken on September 11, 2015 in Saudi Arabia's holy Muslim city of Mecca

shows a construction crane after it crashed into the Grand Mosque (AFP Photo)

Mecca (Saudi Arabia) (AFP) - Saudi authorities said Saturday that Islam's annual hajj pilgrimage will go ahead despite a crane collapse that killed 107 people at Mecca's Grand Mosque, where crowds returned to pray a day after the tragedy.

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims had already arrived in Mecca for the hajj, a must for all able-bodied Muslims who can afford it, when the massive red and white crane collapsed during rain and high winds on Friday.

Parts of the Grand Mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites, remained sealed off Saturday around the toppled crane, which also injured around 200 people when it fell into a courtyard.

But there was little mourning among pilgrims, who snapped pictures of the wreckage and continued with their prayers and rituals.

"I wish I had died in the accident, as it happened at a holy hour and in a holy place," Egyptian pilgrim Mohammed Ibrahim told AFP.

The accident occurred only about an hour before evening mahgrib prayers on the Muslim weekly day of prayer.

A massive construction crane crashed into Mecca's Grand Mosque in stormy

 weather on September 11, 2015, killing at least 107 people and injuring 238. (AFP

Photo/STR)

Om Salma, a Moroccan pilgrim, said "our phones have not stopped ringing since yesterday with relatives calling to check on us."

Indonesians and Indians were among those killed when the crane collapsed, while the injured included Malaysians, Egyptians and Iranians.

A Saudi official said the hajj, expected to start on September 21, would proceed despite the tragedy.

"It definitely will not affect the hajj this season, and the affected part will probably be fixed in a few days," said the official, who declined to be named.

An investigative committee has "immediately and urgently" begun searching for the cause of the collapse, the official Saudi Press Agency said.

The contractor has been directed to ensure the safety of all other cranes at the site, it added.

The cranes poke into the air over the sprawling mosque expansion taking place beneath the Mecca Royal Clock Tower, the world's third-tallest building, at 601 metres (1,972 feet).

For years, work has been underway on a 400,000 square metre (4.3 million square feet) expansion of the Grand Mosque to allow it to accommodate up to 2.2 million people at once.

Abdel Aziz Naqoor, who said he works at the mosque, told AFP he saw the massive construction crane fall during the storm.

"If it weren't for Al-Tawaf bridge the injuries and deaths would have been worse," he said, referring to a covered walkway which broke the crane's fall and surrounds the holy Kaaba.

The Kaaba is a massive cube-shaped structure at the centre of the mosque towards which Muslims worldwide pray.

Saudi governer of the Mecca region Khaled al-Faisal (C) listens to aides of the

 Grand Mosque of Mecca after a construction crane crashed into it on 

September 11 (AFP Photo/STR)

A witness said the winds were so strong that they shook his car and tossed billboards around.

'Act of God'

Pictures of the incident on Twitter showed bloodied bodies strewn across the courtyard, where part of the crane came to rest atop an ornate, arched and colonnaded section of the complex.

A video on YouTube showed people screaming and rushing around following a loud crash.

Saudis and foreigners lined up in the street to give blood in response to the tragedy.

Irfan al-Alawi, co-founder of the Mecca-based Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, suggested that authorities were negligent by having a series of cranes overlooking the mosque.

"They do not care about the heritage, and they do not care about health and safety," he told AFP.

Alawi is an outspoken critic of redevelopment at the holy sites, which he says is wiping away tangible links to the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.

But an engineer for the Saudi Binladin Group, the developer, told AFP the crane was installed in "an extremely professional way" and there was no technical problem.

"It was an act of God", he said.

A picture taken on October 5, 2014, shows construction cranes at the

 Grand mosque in Mecca. (AFP Photo/Mohammed Al-Shaikh)

Saudi Binladin Group belongs to the family of the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Sheikh Ahmed al-Ghamdi, former head of Mecca's religious police, told AFP the accident is a "test" from God.

"We need to accept what happened," he said, calling at the same time for a thorough investigation.

Condolences came in from around the world, including from Arab leaders, as well as from Britain, Canada, India and Nigeria.

This was not the first tragedy to strike Mecca pilgrims, though the hajj has been nearly incident-free in recent years.

In 2006, several hundred died in a stampede during the Stoning of the Devil ritual in nearby Mina, following a similar incident two years earlier.

Top lawyer takes on NAM over Groningen quake dangers

DutchNews, September 11, 2015

High profile lawyer Gerard Spong has made a formal complaint against gas extraction company NAM, saying he holds it responsible for deliberately damaging houses and other property in Groningen province. 

NAM, a joint venture between Shell and ExxonMobil, is in charge of extracting natural gas from large reserves under the province. Thousands of buildings have been damaged in earthquakes caused by the ground settling after the gas has been removed.

‘NAM has continued to drill in Groningen even though it is well aware of the risks, and has put dozens of lives in danger,’ Spong said. ‘This is a scandal, and the criminal courts should have their say.’ 

Various scientific reports show that the drilling is not only causing material damage but presents a real risk to people living in the province, Spong said. He is representing several private individuals and the lobby group Groninger Bodem Beweging. 

A criminal investigation is necessary because the state has a duty to protect its citizens against danger and injury, the lawyer said.

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NAM must compensate quake-hit Groningen home owners, says court

DutchNews, September 2, 2015

Gas extraction company NAM must compensate home owners in Groningen for the loss of value to their homes because of the earthquakes, whether or not they are up for sale, a court in Assen ruled on Wednesday. 

The court said NAM, a 50:50 joint venture between Shell and ExxonMobil, is responsible for the earthquakes and is therefore liable for the damage. The quakes are caused by the ground settling after the gas has been extracted. 

Local home owners, united in the WAG foundation, say 100,000 homes have been hit by the quake risk and are now worth over €1bn less than they should be. The foundation represents 12 housing corporations and some 900 private owners. 

NAM does pay compensation for visible earthquake damage and accepts house prices have gone down because of the quake risk. However, the company has refused until now to compensation home owners for intangible damage ahead of a sale. 

Values 

The court said the actual drop in values would need to be established at separate hearings and that it estimated property prices have fallen by several percentage points. WAG puts the drop at between 5% and 25%.

‘This is fantastic news,’ WAG’s lawyer Pieter Huitema told news agency ANP. ‘This is a major support to people living in the quake region.’ 

NAM can appeal against the ruling at the High Court in The Hague and the company said it is now considering what steps to take next.

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At least five people dead in chemical plant blast in Shandong

Want China Times, Xinhua and Staff Reporter 2015-09-02

The aftermath of the explosion in Shandong, Sept. 2. (Photo/Xinhua)

At least five people have been confirmed killed after a blast at a chemical plant on midnight Monday in east China's Shandong province, local authorities said early Wednesday morning.

The explosion occurred at around 11:22pm Monday at Shandong Binyuan Chemical in Diaokou township of Lijin county, according to the publicity department of Dongying city, which administers Lijin.

The fire was put out at around 4:20am Tuesday, and wastewater from the plant has been sealed without any spillover, the publicity department said. Air quality at the site is being monitored, which was "up to standard" till 8:00am Tuesday, the authorities added.

The cause of the incident is under investigation.

According to the website of Shandong Binyuan Chemical, the company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Shandong Binyuan Group. It was founded in March 2014 and is located in Binhai Economic and Technological Development Zone of Lijin county. The company is a high-tech enterprise with an annual production capacity of 20,000 tonnes of modified adhesive materials.

The incident comes weeks after explosions at a warehouse storing hazardous chemicals in the northern port city of Tianjin killed 158 people (confirmed death toll as of press time), exposing the lax supervision of the chemicals industry in China.

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Groningen houses to get earthquake-proof chimneys Housing

DutchNews, August 17, 2015

Some 800 houses in Groningen are to be fitted with aluminium chimneys which are better able to withstand earthquakes. 

Tens of thousands of buildings in Groningen province have been affected by subsidence caused by the land settling after gas has been extracted.

‘The shaking of a house during an earthquake can loosen the chimney,’ a spokesman for the centre for safe living CVW told Radio 1. ‘This can then fall, causing more damage and possibly hitting bystanders.’ 

The new chimneys are made from aluminium with a thin stone cladding to match the house, and are much lighter than the traditional brick chimneys. ‘Those can weigh 600 or 700 kilos and are much more likely to fall during a severe earthquake,’ the CVW said.

At the beginning of this year the cabinet agreed to a substantial cut in gas extraction over the next three years because of the earthquake risk. In Loppersum, the epicenter of many of the quakes, production is being reduced by 80%. 

A decision to further cut the gas supplies was made in June which will cost the cabinet hundreds of millions of euros in lost revenue.

Chinese prosecutors announce probe into deadly warehouse blasts

Chinese prosecutors are to probe whether deadly blasts at a warehouse in Tianjin were due to illegal storage of dangerous materials, state media say. The explosions killed 112 people and injured hundreds.

Deutsche Welle, 16 Aug 2015

State prosecutors in China said on Sunday they had started an investigation to see whether owners of the warehouse where the explosions occurred were guilty of violating laws on the storage of hazardous chemicals.

The announcement comes as authorities confirmed that hundreds of tons of the toxic chemical sodium cyanide had been on the site of the blasts late Wednesday evening in a mostly industrial area of the northern port city of Tianjin, 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Beijing.

Such a large amount would be a clear violation of rules cited by state media that a maximum of 10 tons of the chemical may be stored at any one time. Chinese laws on hazmat storage also stipulate that such substances should not be kept closer than 1 kilometer from residential areas and public structures.

The Chinese military is helping with cleanup operations

Sodium cyanide can form a flammable gas upon contact with water, and members of the public have questioned whether this fact had been taken into account by firefighters responding to the accident. At least 21 firefighters were among those killed in the warehouse fire and ensuing explosions, making the disaster the deadliest for the Chinese fire brigade in more than six decades.

Eighty-five of the 1,000 firefighters sent to combat the blaze remained unaccounted for on Sunday, with 88 bodies of victims still unidentified.

In addition to the 112 people confirmed dead, more than 700 people were hospitalized with sometimes serious injuries. Many were hurt by glass shattered in the huge fireballs that rose over the city on Wednesday night.

The explosions caused massive
blast waves

Official reassurances

In the face of internet rumors to the contrary, authorities have sought to reassure the public that the air in Tianjin remains safe to breathe, despite slightly raised levels of some pollutants.

In a bid to further dispel public mistrust, the Chinese premier Li Keqiang arrived in the city on Sunday afternoon and came within a kilometer of the blast site without wearing any form of protective clothing.

Li also visited those injured and displaced by the disaster.

The government has also shut down a total of 50 websites and 360 social media accounts for "creating panic by publishing unverified information or letting users spread groundless rumors," according to the Cyberspace Administration of China.

The Tianjin accident was one of the deadliest to occur in China in recent years. In June 2013, a fire at a poultry plant in the northeastern province of Jilin killed 121 people. In August 2014, 97 died in an explosion at a metal plant in eastern Jiangsu province.

tj/sgb (AP, dpa, AFP)

An aerial view of Tianjin Port, October 2012. (File photo/Xinhua)

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Chemical experts assess China blast site after 50 killed

Chemical experts assess China blast site after 50 killed

Yahoo – AFP, Benjamin Haas, 13 Aug 2015

A damaged fire truck is seen at the site of the massive explosions in Tianjin 

on August 13, 2015 (AFP Photo)

Tianjin (China) (AFP) - A Chinese military team of nuclear and chemical experts began work Thursday at the site of two massive explosions in the city of Tianjin, state media said, as pressure grows for authorities to explain the cause of blasts that left 50 dead.

The detonation at a chemical warehouse in the major Chinese port city also injured more than 700, according to official media, leaving a devastated landscape of incinerated cars, toppled shipping containers and burnt-out buildings.

The 217-strong group of military specialists tested the air around the site for toxic gases, with rescue teams ordered to wear protective clothing in the vicinity due to the ongoing risk of leaking poisonous chemicals, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Enormous explosions in Tianjin have killed 

at least 50 people and injured more than

700, state media report (AFP Photo)

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace warned that substances from the site could be dangerous, saying it was "critical" that the potential toxins in the air were monitored closely.

Rescuers were attempting to remove 700 tons of deadly sodium cyanide from the area late Thursday, Communist Party newspaper the People's Daily reported.

Wen Wurui, head of Tianjin's environment protection bureau, told a televised briefing that harmful chemicals detected in the air were not at "excessively high" levels.

A lack of answers as to what caused the blast 24 hours on has reinforced questions about standards in the country, where campaigners say lives are sacrificed on a lack of respect for safety and poor implementation.

A panel of officials at a Thursday press conference were peppered with questions about what chemicals were in the tanks that exploded, but they refused to provide details, and the briefing ended abruptly with officials rushing off stage.

"Clearly there is no real culture of safety in the workplace in China," said Geoffrey Crothall, spokesman for Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin, which promotes worker rights.

Zhang Yong, the head of Binhai New District where the blasts occurred, told journalists only that "before the explosion, locals saw the fire and reported it".

Citing rescue headquarters, the official Xinhua news agency said 50 people had been killed, including at least 12 firefighters.

'I thought it was an earthquake'

Damaged cars and containers are seen 

at the site of a series of explosions in

Tianjin, on August 13, 2015 (AFP Photo)

An AFP reporter in Tianjin in the early hours of Thursday saw shattered glass up to three kilometres (two miles) from the site of the blast, which unleashed a vast fireball that dwarfed towers in the area, lit up the night sky and rained debris on the city.

"When I felt the explosion I thought it was an earthquake," resident Zhang Zhaobo told AFP. "I ran to my father and I saw the sky was already red. All the glass was broken, and I was really afraid."

The blast site sits in a giant logistics hub more than twice the size of Hong Kong.

It hosts auto plants, aircraft assembly lines, oil refineries and other service and production facilities.

The explosion was felt several kilometres away, even being picked up by a Japanese weather satellite, and images showed walls of flame enveloping buildings and rank after rank of gutted cars at an import facility.

Paramedics rushed the injured on stretchers into city hospitals as doctors bandaged up victims, many of them covered in blood.

At one city hospital a doctor wept over a dead firefighter still in uniform, his skin blackened from smoke, as he was wheeled past along with two other bodies.

Rescuers are seen at the site of the massive

 explosions in Tianjin on August 13, 2015 

(AFP Photo)

Xinhua said 701 people were hospitalised, 71 of them in critical condition.

Mei Xiaoya, 10, and her mother were turned away from the first hospital they went to because there were too many people, she told AFP.

"I'm not afraid, it's just a scratch," she said pointing to the bandage on her arm. "But mum was hurt badly, she couldn't open her eyes."

The blaze that followed the blast was brought "under initial control" on Thursday afternoon, Xinhua cited the public security ministry as saying, after 1,000 firefighters and 143 fire engines had been deployed to the site.

Xinhua described the facility as a storage and distribution centre of containers of dangerous goods, including chemicals.

Executives from the storage centre's owner, Tianjin Dongjiang Port Rui Hai International Logistics, were taken into custody by police, it said.

'All-out efforts'

State broadcaster CCTV said that President Xi Jinping had urged "all-out efforts to rescue victims and extinguish the fire".

On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life and the injuries to scores of people".

A man waits in a wheelchair after receiving treatment at Gangkou hospital in

 Tianjin, following a series of explosions at a warehouse in the northern Chinese

city, early on August 13, 2015 (AFP Photo/Benjamin Haas)

China has a dismal industrial safety record as some factory and warehouse owners evade regulations to save money and pay off corrupt officials to look the other way.

In 2013, a pipeline explosion at state-owned oil refiner Sinopec's facility in the eastern port of Qingdao killed 62 people and injured 136.

In July this year, 15 people were killed and more than a dozen injured when an illegal fireworks warehouse exploded in the northern province of Hebei, which neighbours Tianjin.

And 146 were killed in an explosion at a car parts factory in Kunshan, near Shanghai, in August last year.

Tianjin, about 140 kilometres (90 miles) southeast of Beijing, is one of China's biggest cities with a population of nearly 15 million people, according to 2013 figures.