I think he's implying that based on the carnage of the video, it's safe to assume thousands were killed, not 114 or 100's.
Speaking strictly from a debate standpoint, you can't use a news feed/editorial to back up your claim if you say that some of the "facts" they are stating are incorrect.
This is not directed at
@lino (by the way, check your pm) or even this event. I'm speaking about the mechanics of a debate. If you claim that part of the news story you are using as the basis of your argument is resolutely incorrect, you can't point to the same news story to back up any other claims.
The exception here would be if the information was "breaking news" where all the facts aren't discernible yet. This happened like a month ago.
Here is the most comprehensive collection of video, pictures, & news captions I could find. Look at the pics. You will see lots of people. Because one video of one part of the area has no people, really doesn't mean anything. The explosion took out many,
many, massive city blocks. You can't point to one street with no people & say, "look, this was a nuke" (or whatever you want to call it). Also, if you read the story chronologically, the death toll rises, the injury toll rises, there are people who were there to give accounts of what happened. I really don't see how "lifeless" a certain angle of the blast site is, at any given point, is relevant. How would it be different if it wasn't a death star? Whatever the cause, that was a massive explosion. That's what explosions do. They decimate.
http://www.cctv-america.com/2015/08/18/tianjin-mourns-for-victims-amid-fresh-environmental-concerns
The clearly discernible facts here are that there was an explosion at a factory that stored very large quantities of dangerous & explosive chemicals. It happens ALL THE TIME. This won't be the first or last time one of those blows up. It happened here not terribly long ago with a gas leak. 17 people killed & a couple city blocks destroyed. I can't imagine what a place like that would do if it blew up, but I don't think I have to, I see pictures. I will give you this, it's a pretty good cover if you were using subterfuge. However, we really would need to go back & look at all the other ones that have happened across the world & cross reference them with the current events of the time. My guess is, you could speculate that many of them, were a response of one govt. to another. But in reality, most are just explosions. The cost/risk of doing that sort of business.
Given that first responders were already on the scene when the big explosion hit, I'm more inclined to think, that
if it was foul play, it was more likely an act of terror/civil rebellion, as opposed to one super power bombing the other over financial markets.
To be clear, I'm not saying it wasn't foul play. However, I highly doubt a death star, currency, or the U.S. government had a role in it.