A German pyro technician calculated the detonation on basis of what is known about the quanitity of AN that was stored there, and concluded the detonation was in the range of one tenth of the Hiroshima bomb.
Platapus, AN is a crystalized sand/powder, this is the normal aggregate condition of this substance in which it gets stored, traded, transported: mostly not in barrels, but sacks. Its a salt that you get when mixing ammonia and nitric acid.
The substance is usually quite uncritical and insensitive to heat and pressure, just when explosive shock compresses it in extremely short time, or lasting, ongoing high temperatures affect it, it turns critical. Quoted by media reports.
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