OT: Beirut Ammonium Nitrate Explosion
August 5th, 2020 at 10:58 PM ^
There may be people missing who will be added to the death toll. But also, the blast was at the port - not a densely populated area, what with warehouses, room for containers, silos. And the silos were pretty sturdy, still partially standing, so I would think they blocked some of the blast.
Absolutely. in the initial at-distance video clips I was wondering what that long, white, 4 to 5 story building was next to the blast zone. After the blast I was amazed that it was still standing. Then in the later, closer photos you can see that it was a long double(?) row of large silos, perhaps made of thick, reinforced concrete? At any rate, it survived the blast, or at least one row of them did, and that was a very, very fortunate thing for people living in that direction from the blast as it directed the blast up and away from what would've been even more catastrophic had it not been in the way. The only downside is that those silos contained large amounts of wheat which is used to make the staple flatbread in --and beyond-- Beirut. The Lebanese are going to need a lot of help after all this (on top of the hardships they were already burdened with).
Those silos were their reserves and thought to have been emptied out already. It is thought that it was a controlled blast...that's why those buildings were still standing so close to the explosion. The ability to control these explosions has come a long way. The precision is extraordinary to the point of being able to take out one person among others in close quarters using micro drones.
Woooowwwwww....
So, umm, where do you get all this info?
BTW, empty grain silos are considered a very dangerous thing because the grain dust is prone to explosions.
August 6th, 2020 at 10:27 AM ^
WTF? Whoever thinks that was controlled has reached a level of conspiracy hysteria that until now I didn't think was possible? Nothing about that explosion was controlled.
It looks like a kind of industrial port area, so there probably weren't a lot of people in the immediate vicinity.
August 5th, 2020 at 11:11 PM ^
This immediately made me think of JUB’s book The Great Halifax Explosion.
August 5th, 2020 at 11:28 PM ^
Same here. Of all the horrific stories from that book, for some reason the thing that sticks out to illustrate the power of that explosion was finding the ship anchor 2 miles away where it landed.
After seeing the above videos, think about this: The Beirut explosion is estimated as the equivalent of 1100 tons of TNT, according to my several seconds of Google searching. The Halifax explosion was equivalent to 2900 tons of TNT. So look at those videos again and imagine an explosion over 2.5 times bigger.
Link for those not familiar with that catastrophe... but you are very much spot on with the comparison.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion
I've never been party to a high pressure explosion.. they sound absolutely terrifying.
August 6th, 2020 at 12:22 AM ^
I read where the NH4OH was seized about 12 years ago from a Russian cargo ship that got caught trying to unload to Hezbbolah. It was store next to a fireworks factory, but this plant may have been manufacturing rockets as well. The fireworks plant caught on fire and spread over tot the 2000 tons NH40H and kaboom. It should never have been stored so close to civilians. The casualties are just awful!
EPA rescinded a requirement to report what chemicals are stored in a chemical/storage facility. In Texas, there is no requirement to disclose that information. Also there is no zoning! You can imagine the rest. And yes, it happened in West, TX a few years ago and in Texas City about 100 years ago.
Nitrates are no joke.
Lebanon has been pretty much a failed state for the past few years. Most places had nothing like regular power, for example. In fact, the story of electric power industry in that country is a very educational one.
Let me fix that for you:
Lebanon has been pretty much a failed state for the past few decades.
August 6th, 2020 at 12:13 PM ^
When I think of a failed state I think of Somalia or similar.
Lebanon's always been somewhat of a mess but since the civil war, it had been muddling through for awhile. It's definitely become more unstable recently though.
True that it hasn't been good by western standards, but since the civil war ended there was generally bread, electricity, and clean water. Also a functioning banking system. That has not always been the case during the last couple of years. Things definitely took a sharper turn downward recently.
Here is a stunning aerial view of the post-blast landscape (click on the twitter pic to enlarge):
https://twitter.com/jenanmoussa/status/1290899828415889409/photo/1
Jaw-dropping video from lofty living quarters close to the blast site.
"Imad! Imad! Please Come Inside! Now!" He should've listened to her.
"The fate of the two persons who caught the moment is not yet known." Fuck...
How was the footage uploaded ?
Our sister site, MGoBeirut doesn't have a limit on the size of comment attachments.
UMProud - They were streaming it live. (You must be as old as me!)
August 6th, 2020 at 10:05 AM ^
Oh man, I was also thinking they had to be okay in order to have uploaded it.
The shockwave at that distance had to be tremendous. I hope they survived, and without awful injury.
I'm glad phone cameras were pretty much non existent for 9-11. We would have seen some awful things.
We did see some awful things...
Of course. More specifically the terror inside the upper floors of those towers.
I have friends who helplessly watched the jumpers. And said it was horrific.
A similar scenario played out in a major city near Beijing (called Tianjin) in 2015. I read that that explosion was due to 800 tons of ammonium nitrate igniting, so this one is roughly 3.5x larger. People living in Beirut have been having a rough go of things for a long time now, if any of you can donate to their Red Cross I’m sure it would go a long way for some people.
Unbelievable, what a horrible accident in a city that really didn't need any further awful things to happen to it.
August 6th, 2020 at 10:10 AM ^
CNN has some detailed background about what led up to this:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/05/europe/lebanon-russian-ship-blast-intl/index.html
And the Siberian Times (of all sources) has info. on the owner who literally 'abandoned ship' in Beirut's port:
August 6th, 2020 at 12:35 PM ^
100 lbs of that stuff threw our 35,000lb truck off the ground like it weighed nothing. Side note: you can purchase as much as you want, no records, no questions asked at your local gun store. It’s sold as “exploding targets” or “Tannerite” and is just ammonium nitrate with aluminum powder as fuel aka “ANAL”. I was in disbelief when I realized how easy it is to procure.
Somebody posted what this blast radius would look like in Boston; it's pretty terrifying.
I always though ammonium nitrate had to be mixed with something to oxidize like fuel oil in order to explode?
It's NH4NO3, so has plenty of oxidization by itself. Fuel oil makes a bigger boom.
August 7th, 2020 at 11:41 PM ^
GOOD NEWS UPDATE!! Imad Khalil and Lina Alameh both survived the fire and blast that they were filming from their highrise balcony less than 600 meters away from where the ammonium nitrate blew up. CNN has the follow-up here: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/08/07/beirut-explosion-survivors-lon-orig-bks.cnn/video/playlists/beirut-explosion/
They were both severely wounded and knocked unconscious (no surprise there) but are expected to fully recover. She really sounded like a compassionate woman from the comments she was making while watching the disaster unfold. It's good to see that they were not killed. The video includes stills of them both in hospital beds afterwards.
Looks like I'm the only one still (re)-visiting this topic but there's new info coming out daily.
Here, for example, are pictures of the bags of ammonium nitrate stacked up in that warehouse in Beirut. Astonishing how criminally careless the storage was for that dangerous material.
https://twitter.com/DimaSadek/status/1291486030458224640/photo/1