Photo taken on Aug. 13, 2015 shows broken glass and damaged windows at the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin after a huge warehouse explosion.
A warehouse explosion in the city of Tianjin in China has killed 17 people and injured more than 400 as of Thursday morning, according to reports on Xinhuanet. The blast was so severe that the nearby Tianhe-1A supercomputer at the National Supercomputing Center was shut down due to security concerns.
The shockwaves shattered windows at the center and caused collapsed ceilings inside the building, according to the center’s staff.
Smoke billows out from the site of an explosion that reduced a parking lot filled with new cars to charred remains at a warehouse in northeastern China’s Tianjin municipality.
According to center director Liu Guangming, the supercomputer is housed in a reinforced computer room and was still running smoothly immediately after the blast. Liu and his staff said they decided to manually shut down Tianhe-1A 30 minutes after the blast due to security concerns.
This video from IDG News provides a rare look at the Tianhe-1 supercomputer in China. Not to be confused with the Tianhe-2 system (currently ranked at #1), the 2.57 Petaflop Tianhe-1A system is currently #24 on the June 2015 TOP500 list.
