Beirut Explosion

[AETiglathPZ]

Looks like 2nd impact happened in Beirut. Various footage shows a fire in a firework storage warehouse before the blast.

 

https://twitter.com/hashtag/Beirut?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&fbclid=IwAR3hNwGzTfknQotd40WQ6ma-ycV2NeVPxRIDu9L5E14PXDDeLzvICF1Eptw

[Ivanhoe]

One rumor is that the site is actually a Hezbollah rocket facility.

 

Here's another angle;

 

https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1290678928093454336

[Stuart Galbraith]

As we are discussing on the Syria thread, the current narrative is that it's confiscated explosive material. Who from is currently unsaid.

Edited August 4, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[seahawk]

Fireworks looks realistic and the probably ignited some other material. Say some nitrate fertilizers going by the fast explosion with white smoke.

[Ivanhoe]

Lots of candidates to choose from. Since it appears to have started with a fire, I'm envisioning some old deteriorated igniter or primer going half-off and getting some propellant going. Once the fire found some HE, yee hah.

 

I know nothing about explosives, but I didn't see a shock wave coming from that big bang. Low order?

[Josh]

The last explosion is definitely HE, probably ammonium nitrate. The first explosion fire could be fireworks; there looks to be lots of secondaries from one of the camera angles. So it looks like fireworks went off, started a large fire, and ultimately that or additional secondary explosions set off the HE.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Lots of candidates to choose from. Since it appears to have started with a fire, I'm e asnvisioning some old deteriorated igniter or primer going half-off and getting some propellant going. Once the fire found some HE, yee hah.

 

I know nothing about explosives, but I didn't see a shock wave coming from that big bang. Low order?

Oh wait till you see the one taken from the sea, it looks just like the Bikini atoll tests, complete with cloud displacement.

 

They were discussing on the news there is damage 15 kilometres from ground zero. The port is reportedly destroyed.

 

Beirut is a city that could do with some luck..

[Josh]

 

Lots of candidates to choose from. Since it appears to have started with a fire, I'm e asnvisioning some old deteriorated igniter or primer going half-off and getting some propellant going. Once the fire found some HE, yee hah.

 

I know nothing about explosives, but I didn't see a shock wave coming from that big bang. Low order?

Oh wait till you see the one taken from the sea, it looks just like the Bikini atoll tests, complete with cloud displacement.

 

They were discussing on the news there is damage 15 kilometres from ground zero. The port is reportedly destroyed.

 

Beirut is a city that could do with some luck..

 

Do you have a link to that footage? I did see cloud movement in one of the inland shots.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yeah, there is two of them from slightly different angles. The longer one is available in higher definition on CNN, but this is the only version on YouTube at the moment.

 

 

 

Current claim on Twitter (yeah right) is that it was ammonia nitrate confiscated from a ship a year ago, say next to a firework factory that caught fire. If that's true I hope the person responsible for that died, because if not, they want shooting.

Edited August 4, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[RETAC21]

Yeah, there is two of them from slightly different angles. The longer one is available in higher definition on CNN, but this is the only version on YouTube at the moment.

 

 

 

Current claim on Twitter (yeah right) is that it was ammonia nitrate confiscated from a ship a year ago, say next to a firework factory that caught fire. If that's true I hope the person responsible for that died, because if not, they want shooting.

 

I have no clue, but I had read that the Texas City explosion had some of that reddish smoke going before the big bang:

 

"The fire attracted spectators along the shoreline, who believed they were at a safe distance.[6] Eventually, the steam pressure inside the ship blew the hatches open, and yellow-orange smoke billowed out. This color is typical for nitrogen dioxide fumes.[1] The unusual color of the smoke attracted more spectators. "

 

But it appears to go off rather quickly

 

Well, holy shit:

 

https://youtu.be/PLOwKTY81y4

Edited August 4, 2020 by RETAC21

[Josh]

The explosion was next to the storage silos marked in the center of the map; that is the building in foreground.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.9017356,35.5184015,928m/data=!3m1!1e3

[RETAC21]

Looks to me like 10 Kilotons:

 

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=10&lat=33.9013391&lng=35.5181015&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&casualties=1&psi=20,5,1&zm=15

[Josh]

No where close to that big, but it looks like it could have been in the hundreds.

[Jeff]

Holy crap.

[DKTanker]

Fireworks factory explosion
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4iNOguCNFQ[/media]

 

Rocket fuel plant explosion.

 

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRyfMM2FTlk[/media]

 

I'm guessing that was not a fireworks factory explosion in Beirut.

Edited August 4, 2020 by DKTanker

[Stuart Galbraith]

Fireworks would appear to be part of it. In one of the videos there was a close up of the fire, and there appears to be small detonations, looking rather like fireworks going off. So that would appear to be the initiator, I can believe them on that. It seems that initiated the big one. The only questions seem to be what the big one was, and why some lunatic though putting it next to a fireworks factory in the middle of a city was a good idea.

[bojan]

Big explosion is not fireworks at all, it is nitrates, as noted, red-orange color is due the nitrates decomposition. Only nitrate regularly stored in such quantities (through usually not just downtown) is ammonium nitrate.

OTOH, fireworks could be a reason for an initial fire.

DK's second video is ammonium perchlorate explosion.

Edited August 4, 2020 by bojan

[lucklucky]

You can see fireworks type small blasts in a couple of Beirut videos

 

From about 1:10

 

Edited August 4, 2020 by lucklucky

[DKTanker]

Fireworks would appear to be part of it. In one of the videos there was a close up of the fire, and there appears to be small detonations, looking rather like fireworks going off. So that would appear to be the initiator, I can believe them on that. It seems that initiated the big one. The only questions seem to be what the big one was, and why some lunatic though putting it next to a fireworks factory in the middle of a city was a good idea.

You're talking about the same people that launch missiles from school playgrounds and hospital court yards.

[bojan]

...

...Eventually, the steam pressure inside the ship blew the hatches open...

 

I still don't know what a captain was thinking when he decided to extinguish AN fire using high pressure steam - it will result in AN decomposing even more rapidly, and NO2 is hypergolic with a multiples of the things that can be found on the ship, making a problem even worse.

AN fire on the ship = flood it, even if it means sinking a damn thing since alternative is much worse.

Edited August 4, 2020 by bojan

[Ivanhoe]

Do keep in mind that cities tend to grow around hazmat-ish industry, even in the face of pervasive regulation.

 

Here in the States, all sorts of small towns and cities crammed up against the freight tracks back when 99% of rail traffic was boxcars, flatcars, and livestock carriers. What I see in my AO is a whoooole bunch of black tanks with various hazmat symbols...

[Yama]

"Officials are blaming highly explosive materials stored in a warehouse for six years.

President Michel Aoun tweeted it was "unacceptable" that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate was stored unsafely."

 

Okay, that doesn't sound good for sure.

[JWB]

About 1Kt give or take.

[Josh]

Do keep in mind that cities tend to grow around hazmat-ish industry, even in the face of pervasive regulation.

 

Here in the States, all sorts of small towns and cities crammed up against the freight tracks back when 99% of rail traffic was boxcars, flatcars, and livestock carriers. What I see in my AO is a whoooole bunch of black tanks with various hazmat symbols...

 

I read a tweet that indicated NH4NO3 was a shippment from Belarus to Africa that was impounded apparently. The shipping company and the client basically disowned the ship and cargo, and the crew were eventually allowed to return to their home country. Apparently the ammonium was offloaded to a Port Of Beirut warehouse because storing it in the ship was unsafe, and the ship and the cargo have been stored their for years because no one owned it or wanted it. I can't confirm this story but it is the only explanation I've heard for the stuff being there so far. Whatever the reason, it strikes me as criminally negligent to store that kind of material for any extended period of time in a port.

[lucklucky]

Someone had to pay the rent. Probably the Lebanese Gov. that impounded the cargo.