OK, has anyone else answered that question?
Answered what? Western media seems to be lapping up the grieving family members (shouting ‘Stop the foreign media from reporting!’) meme, so what’s to answer? What were you looking for?
The answer is fairly obvious - a breakdown of regulation due to either incompetence or corruption. But don’t expect to hear that answer from them, and they are clearly trying to make sure no one can even ask the question.
If they were trying to broadcast in a room full of injured people, I can see the objection. But no one - except the government - is being inconvenienced by a broadcast outside.
The underbriefed functionary called the news conference, I bet. He could either answer or say he would get the answer. It is not like this is a gotcha question, after all.
Said the alligator to the scorpion.
For their own power and protection the new leadership in China needs to show it is making the lives of the people better and improving the economy. That is what the news will report. If the economy is in fact worsening, that is not going to change what the official media reports, and is just going to increase the pressure on the censors to shut down any bad news from getting out.
There will be scapegoats of course, to try to deflect the blame.
Maintaining power is far more important to them than the confidence of global markets. Western businesses have already demonstrated that they will put up with all sorts of abuse to get a piece of the Chinese market.
Objection: Patently irrelevant.
I’ll ask again: Has any official source even come close to responding to the question “[Why were] so many residential homes […] so close to a storage facility with toxic chemicals?”
Ok…I’m seriously confused. How does this relate to what you quoted from AK84?
In any case, to answer THIS question, the company was authorized or given permission to store a very small amount of what is thought to be the explosive chemicals at that site, despite it being too close to residential neighborhoods by their own regulations. There is an investigation going on right now, and last I heard at least 6 company officials had been arrested. There hasn’t been an official finding, but you can bet that when it happens it will go something like this…those company officials, perhaps along with ‘corrupt’ local official exceeded their authority and/or illegally allowed for more chemical than was authorized. Those company officials, along with perhaps some local officials will, if they are lucky, be given suspended death sentences…or, if enough folks on Weibo are pissed off enough, they will get the long drop. The Chinese Communist Party, of course, will be blameless, and are continuing their efforts to stamp out corruption (they have had a supposed anti-corruption campaign since Xi Jinping came into power…amazingly, it seems to be finding a lot of folks from a rival factions members as the key people doing the corruption :p).
What you are asking in the GQ sense though, no…nothing official yet beyond the fact that the company had a waver to store a small quantity of what is thought to be the explosive chemical in their warehouse even though it was closer to residential structures than is normally allowed, and that the investigation is continuing. You can read about it on a bunch of different sites, but here is CNN’s article on it fwiw: