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China media blasts Tianjin execs for using connections for safety approvals

TIANJIN mayor Huang Xingguo said chemical companies would be required to relocate 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the port's central Binhai district and that there would be "zero-tolerance" for violations.

Also, state media has blasted chemical warehouse bosses whose premises exploded killing 114 people last week, charging them with using connections to obtain health and safety approvals, Reuters reports.

"My connections are with police and fire. When we needed a fire inspection, I went to meet with officials at the Tianjin port fire squad," Dong Shexuan, 34, deputy head of Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics.

"I gave them the files and soon they gave me the appraisal and took care of it," he told Xinhua while he and other executives were in police custody.

Xinhua said Dong did not mention bribery but said company officials shopped around for approvals with different safety evaluation firms until they got the desired result.

State media often airs confessions of those detained in high-profile criminal cases before they are tried in court, a practice that rule of law advocates say violates the rights of the accused to due process.

Flats and a railway station were closer to the warehouse than allowed by Chinese regulations dealing with the storage of dangerous materials, state media said.

China said it was investigating the head of its work safety regulator, who for years allowed companies to operate without a licence for dangerous chemicals.

The People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's official newspaper, said last week that Ruihai had operated without a licence to work with dangerous chemicals because of an administrative loophole, though Reuters could not verify that report.