Tianjin mayor owns responsibility for blasts

The mayor of China's Tianjin city has accepted responsibility for the fatal warehouse blasts on August 12 that claimed 114 lives and injured over 700 others, a media report said.

"As the chief of Tianjin party committee and municipal government, I have an unshirkable responsibility," Mayor Huang Xingguo said.

Huang said the government would recognise the firefighters who died in the line of duty. He proposed to build a memorial park at the blast site for the "heroes", China.org reported.

He pledged zero-tolerance for the company and personnel responsible for the blasts, "no matter who he is and what connection he has".

Responding to concerns about the local economy, Huang said the damage caused by the disaster needs further assessment, but would not affect the fundamentals of Tianjin's economy.

He said the export and import of bulk commodities would not be affected in general.

"The areas affected by the blasts only have 176 companies... most of them do not run import-export business," he added.