Beirut mystery explosion

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Steveml63

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Hi
i have seen plenty of explosions - but cannot recall seeing one as big as the one that happened in Beirut this afternoon (other than atom bomb tests!)

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Cheers
Steve
 
Fireworks, they are pretty dangerous things in the wrong hands !!
 
Aliens.......
 
My initial thought was that someone may have irresponsibility stored dangerous chemicals in a particularly unsafe way... but given that it's Beirut, I would say it was a Hizbullah rocket cache, most likely.

EDIT: early reports suggest that a fire that started at a fireworks warehouse at the port spread to other warehouses including one containing nitrates. Among the causalities are also emergency services crews who responded to the original fire. About 3,000 injured (estimated).
 
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Apparently the warehouses at the port were used for storing weapons, munitions, rockets, explosives, and... fuel. Not a good combination obvously. But early indications are that the explosion occurred at a chemical storage facility (most likely nitrates), it is not clear if the munitions and fuel that were reportedly stored there are part of the disaster.
 
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...apparently the nitrates were confiscated from a ship back in 2014 and held at the port since. They should have been transferred to safe storage but this hasn't happened.
 
There are reports of building damage at the airport 6 miles away. For that to happen a conventional bomb can be ruled out. It has to have been caused by a very large local store of explosive material whether that be fireworks, missiles, explosives, chemicals or the combination of them all causing a fuel in air blast that maximized the pressure wave and subsequent damage. You would not want to have been anywhere near that, I suspect the death toll will rise way above current reports.
 
Highly unlikely to be terrorism or deliberate, but I feel for the country; as if they didn't have enough to contend with already, now a massive and hugely damaging thermobaric explosion as well...

Poor sods.
 
Hi,
I have many Lebanese friends here - one of these friends brother heard the explosion at his house in the mountains.
They live at an altitude of 1600m - 50km from Beirut!
One of my wife’s friends is a medic in Beirut - could be more than 8000 injured.
cheers
steve
 
I heard it was storing C19 vaccines...

(Completely uncorroborated and therefore probably untrue)
 
2.7 Tons of Ammunium Nitrate, according to a recent report.... and the blast was heard in Cyprus, 150 miles away.
 
According to this:


Pure Ammonium Nitrate explosion is equivalent to 56% of TNT.... so 2,750 tonnes of the stuff will explode like 1,540 tonnes of TNT. Thats 10% of the power of Little Boy, the A-Bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Then, I suspect that in the aftermath, the air was full of toxic gasses, which will have increased the number of victims.
 
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It's the pull in and then push out of sea water that makes it so dramatic visually.
Awesome (but tragic)

Not on the scale (or force I would expect) of Tianjin though
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Thermobaric weapon (fuel-air bomb)?
Might not have been a custom designed and built Thermobaric weapon.... but what ever combination of chemical was stored there, its having the same effect,. as if they did not have enough to contend with in that part of the world, And it's a beautiful old city,
 
Pure Ammonium Nitrate explosion is equivalent to 56% of TNT.... so 2,750 tonnes of the stuff will explode like 1,540 tonnes of TNT. Thats 10% of the power of Little Boy, the A-Bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

My understanding is it's more like 40% equivalent of TNT.

It's unlikely all the material detonated.

Somebody will probably calculate the equivalent properly - but it's probable only a small % of the stored material actually detonated - 'just' 1% or 27 tonnes would be around 10 tonnes TNT equivalent. That is a very very devastating explosion in a built up environment.

Two recent events that come to mind are the explosions in Tianjin in China and one in Texas. The risks are known and obvious.
 
The video that I've seen on the news shows a large shockwave
 

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