China has arrested 23 people under criminal charges tied to the Tianjin blasts, state media said.
Among the arrested are the the chairman, vice-chairman and three deputy managers of the warehouse that exploded, as well as officials from various state departments and customs officers, said Xinhua.
The massive explosion on Aug. 12 has so far racked up 139 deaths, with 34 people missing still.
These arrests come a day after the government sacked the chief of the State Administration of Work Safety, Yang Dongliang. Chinese media said Yang is being investigated for a "severe violation of discipline and law" -- a euphemism the Communist Party has used in the past for corruption.
While China hasn't said officially that Yang was connected to the warehouse that exploded, it's likely that the disaster is part of the picture. The warehouse owner, Ruihai International Logistics, did not have the license to handle hazardous chemicals until two months before the explosion, but worked with those chemicals for over a year.
The government confirmed that at the time of the blast, the warehouse was carrying 700 tonnes of sodium cyanide -- 70 times the legal limit. Days after it blew up, cyanide levels in the water at the port reached 277 times the acceptable standard, as hundreds of thousands of dead fish washed up ashore.