Massive explosion a Beirut port

[Jimbuna]

A number of Beirut port officials are being placed under house arrest pending an investigation into Tuesday's huge explosion, Lebanon's government says.

The blast killed at least 135 people and injured more than 4,000 others. A two-week state of emergency has begun.

President Michel Aoun said the blast was caused by 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored unsafely in a warehouse.

Customs chief Badri Daher said his agency called for the chemical to be removed, but "this did not happen".

"We leave it to the experts to determine the reasons," he said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-53670839

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Vendor

Thank you! As you say ... how could this happen, someone has obviously had an intent.

Not necessarily, ammonium nitrate storage sites or factories sometimes blow up here and there again and again, due to unsafe security rules, accidents. A couple fo years ago in China. Two or threee times in Africa in the past 20 years. 1921 in a factory in Germany, history books say that back then windows up to 15 km away bursted. Ir surely is a big Booom.



There was an earlier fire in a nearby place that stored or produced fireworks. From there the fire may have ingited the A.N. , which in itself is not so easily to ignite, they say.



If there was intention, then the intention to not store it away safely, but leaving it there for so long time. Question also may be why such an ammount was stored. Was it really only agricultural need? It gets rumoured that maybe "religious" groups held the ownership rights and kept it for times of war, to produce explosives. If that is true I would not even rule out that the Mossad may be behind this. But that is a very thin theory only, i currently give it no reasonable credit. For the time beign I go with the explanation of a fire jumping over to the storage site and then blowing it up, accidentally.



But in this part of the world you have to expect everything, and nothing is as it seems.

[Skybird]

German media report that Hezbollah maintained storage sites with huge quantities of cooling opack sin Germany that contained signficant ammounts of ammonoum nitarte. That was in the years 2012 to 2016, and after the intelliogence service foundign out about it this discovery became the fudnament of why later Hezbollah was banned frim being active in business or presence in Germany.

A link between the warehouse in the harbour, and Hezbollah, appears likely currently, even more so since the Lebanese custoims office demanded the removal of the stockjpiles already loner time agao, and nothign hapopened. Hezbollah is very influential in Lebanese politics.

[Randomizer]

Here's an analysis piece from a pretty reliable analyst:

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena...-up-in-beirut/

Early days yet and offered with the usual caveats:

High-order detonation of ~2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in bags in a dockside ware house probably equalled ~240 tonnes of TNT

Numerous, smaller pre-detonation explosions caught on film.

3.5-3.7 shock on the Richter Scale

Shock wave rattled windows in Cyprus

Large crater in the harbour now visible at scene of detonation.

Beirut customs officials had been trying to make the seized chemicals go away for several years. Pre-detonation photos of the warehouse show pretty sloppy storage and handling.

-C

[Mr Quatro]

I don't think Hezbollah did it, but they will get the blame due to being in charge of why that much ammonium nitrate was stored in bags in a dockside ware house (2,700 tons)

Everyone knows it has explosive properties, but it was being denied export to it's orginal country and they had no plans what to do with it.

I was busy doing something else while it was on MSNBC so I only got a little shock, but I went back with my DVR HDD and turned the sound off to the reporter and wow ... what a difference it was to watch without comment.

[tmccarthy]

[tmccarthy]

[Subnuts]

I know that, disregarding conspiracy cranks, this wasn't a nuclear explosion, but Alex Wellerstein's NUKEMAP site can give you a good idea of the effects of a 3 kiloton explosion in that location would be:

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?...&cloud=1&zm=14

[Jimbuna]

Customs chief Badri Daher said his agency called for the chemical to be removed, but "this did not happen".

I think the above may well have put himself in harms way.

[Platapus]

AN, if improperly stored can crystallize which can make what as normally a relatively insensitive explosive into a more sensitive explosive.

[Skybird]

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.

[vienna]

There was an expert interviewed on the DW-The Day US PBS News program on Wednesday who recounted and listed a very surprising number of large AN explosions over the last several decades; the number surprised me, so I looked up a link:


Ammonium nitrate disaster -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_nitrate_disaster


The US had its own whopping AN disaster in 1947 when a ship loaded with 2300 tons of AN blew up killing 581 persons:


Fertilizer explosion kills 581 in Texas --

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-...s-581-in-texas


It seems being less than diligent about AN handling is not confined solely to the Lebanese; as recently as 2009 and 2013, Texas has had two more AN disasters, one a huge fire and the other a massive explosion...





<O>

[Mr Quatro]

From a friend that knows more than I do

The explosive yield of the 2750 tons of ammonium nitrate in the Beirut port explosion is estimated to have been the equivalent of 200-500 tons of TNT. For comparison, the MOAB conventional bomb in our arsenal today yields about 11 tons of TNT. Little Boy dropped on Hiroshima yielded about 15,000 tons of TNT; Fat Man dropped on Nagasaki yielded about 20,000 tons of TNT.

Each of the two nuclear weapons dropped were 30 to 100 times the TNT equivalent yield of the Beirut explosion.

[UglyMowgli]

A UNIFIL from Bengladesh ship (BNS Bijoy is a Castle-class guided missile corvette) was badly damaged and 19 sailors were wounded



https://navalnews.net/bangladesh-nav...rut-explosion/









On this website, you can see on Cruise ship before and after (she sank and 2 sailors are reported dead)



https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...tellite-images



Video of the Ocean Queen

https://twitter.com/cedar_news/statu...401292801?s=20

[Mr Quatro]

I couldn't understand what that big building left standing was at first and now it has been reported to be a grain silo