Firefighters from the Ningbo Port Group in Zhejiang Province hold a fire drill to practice how to deal with accidents involving hazardous chemicals on September 11. Photo: IC

It has been two months since the deadly explosions in Tianjin's port area killed more than 100 people and injured hundreds of others.

The investigation team claimed in September that "they had found the location where the fire first started and were virtually certain of the substances that caused the fire."

But no official statement has yet been released detailing what hazardous chemical substances caused the massive blasts, and potential dangers are still lurking in the production chain of hazardous chemicals and loose regulations at the port of Tianjin.

Empty words

All ports in China were ordered to self-inspect their safety protocols regarding hazardous chemicals following the blasts. According to shippingchina.com, a total of 37 ports have since tightened their rules on receiving hazardous chemicals, while 18 ports including Tianjin have banned outright the import and export of hazardous chemicals.

"Announcing self-inspections and banning hazardous chemicals are basically just statements from the ports, the practical effects are limited," a source close the Tianjin Port was quoted as saying.

According to news portal, jiemian.com, despite the damage caused by the explosions and the announced restrictions, hazardous chemicals such as calcium hypochlorite are still being exported from the port of Tianjin through various channels.

As the investigation team has not announced the cause of the blasts, it is unknown whether or not calcium hypochlorite disguised as non-hazardous chemicals still remains at the scene of the explosion.

According to the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code, calcium hypochlorite is flammable and explosive. It can also produce poisonous chlorine gas if it comes in contact with acid.

As one of the major regions for the production of calcium hypochlorite in China, a great deal of hazardous chemicals are disguised by unscrupulous businesses and exported from Tianjin, freight forwarders who work in the port told jiemian.com.

Gaping loopholes

Thousands of chemical companies in Tianjin produce hazardous materials, but more than half of them have not obtained the necessary work safety license, said Li Ming (pseudonym), a director of a Tianjin-based chemical plant.

Enterprises which produce hazardous chemicals in large containers should apply for a license from work safety departments and need to prepare at least 12 documents and undergo a safety inspection for their application.

"It's quite difficult to obtain a work safety license, without even mentioning that it requires a lot of money that small companies may struggle to pay," Li Ming said.

While most of the chemical companies which fail to get the work safety license may build their factories outside of Tianjin, it is difficult to stamp out the production of hazardous chemicals altogether due to the exploitable loopholes and the work safety department of Tianjin cannot accurately estimate the number of illegal chemical companies operating in the municipality.

Moreover, inconsistent regulations on the production of hazardous chemicals issued by different departments also offer companies a chance to avoid the hassle and expense of getting a work safety license.

According to the regulations issued by the local work safety department, if a company puts hazardous chemicals in small packages they only require an easily-obtainable business license. The department of quality supervision requires a work safety license even if chemicals are in small packages, but many companies simply ignore this inconvenient fact.

Companies that only have a business license don't have to go through safety assessments. After getting their business license, they would be free from work safety supervision. In that case, the government does not care if the company run factories producing dangerous chemicals or not, Li claimed.

Lax inspections

Local freight agencies usually transport hazardous chemicals once they leave the factory.

Before the explosions, many local companies used Tianjin Ruihai International Logistics to transport, store or export hazardous chemicals, as it was an authorized agent for handling hazardous chemicals and their services were "relatively cheap," according to the jiemian.com report.

Ruihai Logistics was shut down after the explosions, but companies in Tianjin still have ways to export dangerous chemicals such as calcium hypochlorite through the port. Even though Tianjin has banned the transit and storage of calcium hypochlorite, companies can still legally use freezers to carry the chemical and export it.

But companies need to prepare six documents to get permission to export the chemical and the cost of transporting calcium hypochlorite in freezers is prohibitively high.

If the companies tell customs officials that their calcium hypochlorite is calcium chloride, their costs would drop significantly.

It is hard to distinguish calcium hypochlorite and calcium chloride, as they are both white powders, and calcium chloride is classified as a non-hazardous chemical, and therefore costs two or three times less to ship.

According to a freight agent surnamed Zhang, companies often pass off calcium hypochlorite as calcium chloride or sodium hypochlorite in order to save money.

After the explosions, all hazardous chemicals must go through custom controls, while other chemicals don't need this procedure, said Zhang.

 "Such false declarations may pose threats to ports and shipping companies. Workers don't know the content of the boxes and will treat them as ordinary goods," Zhang said.

If customs authorities just carry out random inspections on chemicals for export, they will only be able to find a small proportion of  falsely-labeled hazardous chemicals, Zhang added.

The lack of proper administration over warehouses in the port also poses potential threats.

"Very few administrators know about chemistry, and therefore they cannot properly manage such warehouses," Li said.

Another freight agent said that the potential dangers could not be removed if the authorities only change one aspect of the hazardous chemicals management procedure.

Only by implementing a more reasonable procedure in the whole supply chain, could the hidden dangers at Tianjin port could be eliminated, said the agent, who requested anonymity.