Tianjin blasts death toll rises to 158

TIANJIN - The death toll from the Tianjin warehouse explosions rose to 158 on Monday with 15 people still missing two weeks after the blasts, according to rescue authorities.

The dead include 94 firefighters, 11 policemen and 53 civilians. The missing include 10 firefighters and five civilians.

Two blasts ripped through a warehouse in Tianjin Port where large amounts of toxic chemicals were stored, including around 700 tonnes of sodium cyanide, at around 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 12.

More than 300 primary and middle schools in the Binhai New Area, where the port is located, opened for the new semester on Monday as scheduled, local authorities said.

On Sunday, no excessive levels of pollutants were found in the air outside the exclusion zone, but high levels of cyanide were detected from water samples from inside the exclusion zone, with the worst about 20 times the level officially regarded as safe.