wharf

Along a rocky wharf at the Port of Los Angeles on Tuesday, seven blue steel structures bobbed in the gentle wake of a Catalina Island ferry.

The next morning, some 300 Chinese people were marched to the wharf and loaded onto steamships.

But at the end of the city-owned wharf, hanging on a flimsy metal fence, are small warning signs.

It was a place transformed, with railroads and wharves running at capacity.

A major fire is still raging at the site and pictures show huge, billowing black clouds over the wharfs.