I wonder how they know so quickly how much ammonium nitrate was stored there?
Looks like they're investigating who/what is responsible still...
According to the BBC thing I watched the finger is being pointed at the negligent city officials who didn't take the correct precautions. So the powers that be knew exactly how much was there coz they were supposed to be safeguarding it. So I'm guessing many people knew exactly what was there and how much.
Its apparently been sitting in that warehouse, adjacent to the port and city center for 6 years. Plenty of time to know how much.
Apparently there are reports (and footage) of fireworks going off in the vicinity (the video on the BBC news tonight was from a different angle (without the building in the way in the video on the webpage) and little sparkles are visible just prior to the explosion), and the inevitable happened. No attack, just part of the basic reason you don't store this stuff inside a city, especially not in that quantity.
2750 tons sounds a lot more reasonable than the "few tons" I'd heard reported earlier, that looked like a small tactical nuke going off, which matches perfectly with almost 3 kilotons of explosives.
It's surprising stuff like this doesn't happen more often. The crazy stuff that happens in ports, when cargoes or ships are abandoned or get mixed up in legal drama, can boggle the mind.
Vaktathi wrote: 2750 tons sounds a lot more reasonable than the "few tons" I'd heard reported earlier, that looked like a small tactical nuke going off, which matches perfectly with almost 3 kilotons of explosives.
It's surprising stuff like this doesn't happen more often. The crazy stuff that happens in ports, when cargoes or ships are abandoned or get mixed up in legal drama, can boggle the mind.
Christ, that's bigger than the Galveston disaster. We have a new record holder for largest conventional explosion, I think.
Vaktathi wrote: 2750 tons sounds a lot more reasonable than the "few tons" I'd heard reported earlier, that looked like a small tactical nuke going off, which matches perfectly with almost 3 kilotons of explosives.
It's surprising stuff like this doesn't happen more often. The crazy stuff that happens in ports, when cargoes or ships are abandoned or get mixed up in legal drama, can boggle the mind.
Christ, that's bigger than the Galveston disaster. We have a new record holder for largest conventional explosion, I think.
I don't think so? Technically the Minor Scale and Misty Picture tests tipped just over 4 kilotons.
But it will easily scale somewhere in the same ballpark as the Halifax Explosion and Texas City disaster - two other devastating port city explosions.
Yeah, been seeing a fair bit of footage from different views. As close as some dude who looked like he was on the building next door to it, looking in at the smoke pouring out. I'm just hoping our countries can bring together some support to offer those who have been affected. And considering this was at a shipping wharf, the numbers given so far seem way too low.
Vaktathi wrote: 2750 tons sounds a lot more reasonable than the "few tons" I'd heard reported earlier, that looked like a small tactical nuke going off, which matches perfectly with almost 3 kilotons of explosives.
It's surprising stuff like this doesn't happen more often. The crazy stuff that happens in ports, when cargoes or ships are abandoned or get mixed up in legal drama, can boggle the mind.
Christ, that's bigger than the Galveston disaster. We have a new record holder for largest conventional explosion, I think.
RAF fauld was 3.5-4k tonnes, and the Halifax was about 2.9k tonnes. Granted it's difficult to know the net explosive quantities Vs all up weights when it comes to cased munitions.
Edit: just found the neq estimate for fauld at 2kt. So yeah, if you discount minor scale, misty picture and British bang military tests, you could be right. If your paremeters were largest accidental explosion instead.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Voss wrote: Its apparently been sitting in that warehouse, adjacent to the port and city center for 6 years. Plenty of time to know how much.
Apparently there are reports (and footage) of fireworks going off in the vicinity (the video on the BBC news tonight was from a different angle (without the building in the way in the video on the webpage) and little sparkles are visible just prior to the explosion), and the inevitable happened. No attack, just part of the basic reason you don't store this stuff inside a city, especially not in that quantity.
There's a bunch of smoke visible before the explosion, so a firework could have caused a fire. And the red smoke that shows with the explosion itself suggests that the AN hasn't detonated completely. In my limited knowledge I'd suggest that it deflagrated to a partial detonation, which in this case would be a small mercy.
Fortunately (?) it appears to be almost certain that this is a tragic accident, given the huge column of smoke it had obviously been well alight for quite a while before the final detonation. The fact that a nuclear-scale explosion is being treated as a “meanwhile” footnote in the news just shows how fethed up this year is.
Would be terrible anywhere it happened, but doubly so in a country that will struggle to have the resources to recover from it and really didn’t deserve another kicking.
Jadenim wrote: Fortunately (?) it appears to be almost certain that this is a tragic accident, given the huge column of smoke it had obviously been well alight for quite a while before the final detonation. The fact that a nuclear-scale explosion is being treated as a “meanwhile” footnote in the news just shows how fethed up this year is.
Would be terrible anywhere it happened, but doubly so in a country that will struggle to have the resources to recover from it and really didn’t deserve another kicking.
Its not really anywhere near a nuclear scale explosion. there may have been 3k tons of explosive material, but that doesnt mean the magnitude of the explosion is equivalent to the corresponding k-ton weight of TNT, especially if it has only deflagrated or deflagrated to detonation(which I would guess at due to the large blast wave). that is going to significantly reduce the actual magnitude of the explosion. until we get some definitive measurements, its difficult to say with any certainty, but to me you could achieve explosions that size or even larger with conventional 1000lb bomb or 2 which typically only contain 5-600lb of explosive.
Don't get me wrong, its one hell of a blast. the blast wave itself is particularly impressive.
Incorrect. A SMALL nuclear weapon in actual history was the 155 mm howitzer fired .072 kiloton tactical nuclear shell.
That's roughly 2 orders of magnitude smaller than this explosion, so even accounting for the differences in "whatever this was" vs "Trinitrotoluene" that means yeah, this was larger than a SMALL nuke.
Given that, someone probably just won apocalypse bingo, if they picked "nuclear scale explosion accident not involving russian attacks on the ukrainian stocks of weaponry", "the middle east, just blows up", or even "lebanon... Cause."
Yeah I didn't say that small nuclear explosions aren't possible. of course they are. (There's a reason those small nuclear munitions like that and the Davy Crockett never gained widespread use.) but in terms of magnitude for reporting purposes, this is just a very large conventional explosion. As I said, until we get an actual measure of its magnitude, it's difficult to say what it was with any accuracy.
But to counter your point that this is 3 orders of magnitude higher based on weight of explosive material, equivalence in weight does not equal equivalence in magnitude. Ammonium nitrate explosives (ANFO, ANS, ANAL*Snigger*) are a lot less powerful than your typical military or mining explosives (PE8, C4, TNT etc) this is why the roadside IEDs in afghan would consist of 100l palm oil containers packed with AN home made explosives, whereas you could achieve a similar explosion with a 155mm arty shell or a stick or 2 of plastic explosive. And again, how much of the material actually detonated, as opposed to deflagrated or simply burned, will also be a factor.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: until we get some definitive measurements, its difficult to say with any certainty, but to me you could achieve explosions that size or even larger with conventional 1000lb bomb or 2 which typically only contain 5-600lb of explosive.
Are we looking at the same explosion? A 1000lb bomb doesn't level city blocks on its own. Even the lower-level estimates I've seen are estimating an equivalent of 100 tonnes of TNT, with most seeming to land somewhere around 1kt.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: until we get some definitive measurements, its difficult to say with any certainty, but to me you could achieve explosions that size or even larger with conventional 1000lb bomb or 2 which typically only contain 5-600lb of explosive.
Are we looking at the same explosion? A 1000lb bomb doesn't level city blocks on its own. Even the lower-level estimates I've seen are estimating an equivalent of 100 tonnes of TNT, with most seeming to land somewhere around 1kt.
Did it level any? It was catastrophic but the videos make the destruction look a fair bit more all-encompassing than the aftermath photos. The building opposite the warehouse is still standing, albeit wrecked.
Edit: nb I think conversing about exactly how big the explosion was relative to military ordinance is really irrelevant and fairly tasteless at the moment.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: until we get some definitive measurements, its difficult to say with any certainty, but to me you could achieve explosions that size or even larger with conventional 1000lb bomb or 2 which typically only contain 5-600lb of explosive.
Are we looking at the same explosion? A 1000lb bomb doesn't level city blocks on its own. Even the lower-level estimates I've seen are estimating an equivalent of 100 tonnes of TNT, with most seeming to land somewhere around 1kt.
Did it level any? It was catastrophic but the videos make the destruction look a fair bit more all-encompassing than the aftermath photos. The building opposite the warehouse is still standing, albeit wrecked.
I wouldn't say that building is standing. A portion of it is, but it looks like most of it is gone.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: until we get some definitive measurements, its difficult to say with any certainty, but to me you could achieve explosions that size or even larger with conventional 1000lb bomb or 2 which typically only contain 5-600lb of explosive.
Are we looking at the same explosion? A 1000lb bomb doesn't level city blocks on its own. Even the lower-level estimates I've seen are estimating an equivalent of 100 tonnes of TNT, with most seeming to land somewhere around 1kt.
Did it level any? It was catastrophic but the videos make the destruction look a fair bit more all-encompassing than the aftermath photos. The building opposite the warehouse is still standing, albeit wrecked.
I wouldn't say that building is standing. A portion of it is, but it looks like most of it is gone.
This. The grain elevator is essentially shorn in half with one half of it just gone. The crater left behind by the explosion is now part of the ocean, having blown away the pier and land beneath the warehouse.
No 1000lb bomb is going to deliver an explosion like that, they're not even remotely the same scale. You can watch MOAB drops that very clearly are orders of magnitude less impressive than the Beirut explosion.
Looking at the video for the Crockett tactical mini nuke however, looks more appropriate.
In any case, does it really matter? The scale of the explosion relative to military ordinance is really irrelevant and a fairly tasteless conversation. I shouldn't have contributed myself.
I've read in a fairly trustworthy Dutch newspaper that the ammonium nitrate was impounded by the ministry of justice and stocked there on their orders in 2013. The harbour director and various of his officials have apparently been trying in vain to get it removed due to the risk involved for 6(!) years...
...
But it's the harbour workers who are now being put under house arrest. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it's to find out if there was malice and intent involved.
The country is a hotbed of problems and it would be shocking if they didn't suspect foul play as a potential aspect. If that happened in almost any country there would be investigations and staff/workers etc... would certainly be one of the first groups under investigation.
Vaktathi wrote: No 1000lb bomb is going to deliver an explosion like that, they're not even remotely the same scale. You can watch MOAB drops that very clearly are orders of magnitude less impressive than the Beirut explosion.
Looking at the video for the Crockett tactical mini nuke however, looks more appropriate.
Just seen a video from a different angle, it looks a lot bigger than the one I initially saw. However, it still only seems like a partial reaction to me, due to the red smoke. Which, as I said, is a small mercy.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Overread wrote: The country is a hotbed of problems and it would be shocking if they didn't suspect foul play as a potential aspect. If that happened in almost any country there would be investigations and staff/workers etc... would certainly be one of the first groups under investigation.
The dock is apparently known as Ali babas cave of 40 thieves, so I'd be willing to bet a combination of corruption and negligence played a part in it sitting there for 7 years.
Vaktathi wrote: No 1000lb bomb is going to deliver an explosion like that, they're not even remotely the same scale. You can watch MOAB drops that very clearly are orders of magnitude less impressive than the Beirut explosion.
Looking at the video for the Crockett tactical mini nuke however, looks more appropriate.
An impression explosion does not necessarily equate to a powerful explosion.
Regardless, the idea that the detonation and results were anything even within an order of magnitude of what a 1000lb bomb would deliver is woefully inaccurate. A 1000lb bomb exploding on land doesn't throw entire boats out of the water, or do this kind of damage.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: until we get some definitive measurements, its difficult to say with any certainty, but to me you could achieve explosions that size or even larger with conventional 1000lb bomb or 2 which typically only contain 5-600lb of explosive.
Are we looking at the same explosion? A 1000lb bomb doesn't level city blocks on its own. Even the lower-level estimates I've seen are estimating an equivalent of 100 tonnes of TNT, with most seeming to land somewhere around 1kt.
Did it level any? It was catastrophic but the videos make the destruction look a fair bit more all-encompassing than the aftermath photos. The building opposite the warehouse is still standing, albeit wrecked.
Edit: nb I think conversing about exactly how big the explosion was relative to military ordinance is really irrelevant and fairly tasteless at the moment.
If 300,000 are now homeless like news are reporting that's quite a few buildings unlivable.
Vaktathi wrote: No 1000lb bomb is going to deliver an explosion like that, they're not even remotely the same scale. You can watch MOAB drops that very clearly are orders of magnitude less impressive than the Beirut explosion.
Looking at the video for the Crockett tactical mini nuke however, looks more appropriate.
An impression explosion does not necessarily equate to a powerful explosion.
Regardless, the idea that the detonation and results were anything even within an order of magnitude of what a 1000lb bomb would deliver is woefully inaccurate. A 1000lb bomb exploding on land doesn't throw entire boats out of the water, or do this kind of damage.
The destruction of the grain silo also brings into question the supply of food in the nation. It looks like it was quite full so that means a lot of potential food has just been lost.
Ontop of that don't forget its not just 4K injured and 300,000 homeless; its ontop of Corona. So that's a huge body of people you don't want to put into dense housing and a medical system that likely was already under strain before this disaster.
Strange how none of the buildings have scorch marks.
2700 tons of Ammonium Nitrate going up would have released enough heat to melt pavement and common building surfaces. It would have increased the temperature to a level where dust would have burned on contact.
If this was a ground level explosion, would have expected to see see black, vertical bands across the top of every remaining structure for about a 3 mile radius.
But what do I know.
Overread wrote:The destruction of the grain silo also brings into question the supply of food in the nation. It looks like it was quite full so that means a lot of potential food has just been lost.
Ontop of that don't forget its not just 4K injured and 300,000 homeless; its ontop of Corona. So that's a huge body of people you don't want to put into dense housing and a medical system that likely was already under strain before this disaster.
Humanitarian situation must be awful.
It's common to give people anti-depressants in that neck of the woods. I suspect a lot of people upped their dose.
I'm inclined to think it was likely an accident. Beirut is not know for a strong infrastructure and probably is very lax on safety regulations.
The fact this much ammonium nitrate was piled up close enough to chain react like this makes it likely there was little in the way of regulations or enforcement.
I just don;t see this as a deliberate act, it seems more like an accident but we're all too eager to look for a bad guy because we hate admitting accidents happen.
Apparently a ship called the MV Rhosus, operating under a Moldovan flag and owned by a Russian born Cypriot, called on Beirut in 2013 while transporting the Ammonium Nitrate to Mozambique, but was seized after being declared unseaworthy, creditors filed claims against the vessel, the owner went bankrupt and abandoned the ship (stopped taking calls, stopped paying wages, stopped attempting to get the ship back, etc), and the cargo was removed from the ship for safekeeping and the crew allowed to return home in 2014. From there the cargo sat in the warehouse stuck in legal limbo despite the pleas of the port authorities...until it went boom.
It's pretty horrifying how common stories like this actually are.
Vaktathi wrote: Apparently a ship called the MV Rhosus, operating under a Moldovan flag and owned by a Russian born Cypriot, called on Beirut in 2013 while transporting the Ammonium Nitrate to Mozambique, but was seized after being declared unseaworthy, creditors filed claims against the vessel, the owner went bankrupt and abandoned the ship (stopped taking calls, stopped paying wages, stopped attempting to get the ship back, etc), and the cargo was removed from the ship for safekeeping and the crew allowed to return home in 2014. From there the cargo sat in the warehouse stuck in legal limbo despite the pleas of the port authorities...until it went boom.
It's pretty horrifying how common stories like this actually are.
At least the explosion will likely not do much damage or kill people, but the oil spill will be an ecological storm across a million square miles of ocean.
In this incident (the explosion in leb, I mean) its only apparent that there an accident rather than a deliberate plan. The presence of a ready source of explosives about half as powerful as TNT next to a fuel station and a fireworks facility in a country with active IED production by multiple (read hezbollah et. al.) terrorist groups also introduces multiple layers of possible malice.
Its never as bad nor as good as it appears, but its also too early to believe the politically very consumable claims of accident. There are multiple bad actors in middle eastern politics, and the casual use of infastructure or existing materiel is a hallmark of some of them. S
Vaktathi wrote: It's pretty horrifying how common stories like this actually are.
Now there's calls in Australia for a plant that has significantly more nitrate than what caused the Beirut explosion to "do something" about removing it to avoid a similar accident.
Seems people don't understand the difference between carefully stored and highly regulated explosive material and a bunch of ammonium nitrate sitting in bags in some open-air warehouse down by the docks.
Vaktathi wrote: It's pretty horrifying how common stories like this actually are.
Now there's calls in Australia for a plant that has significantly more nitrate than what caused the Beirut explosion to "do something" about removing it to avoid a similar accident.
Seems people don't understand the difference between carefully stored and highly regulated explosive material and a bunch of ammonium nitrate sitting in bags in some open-air warehouse down by the docks.
Some people treasure their ignorance.
When you had some opposition to nuclear power plants the founder of one of the main anti nuclear power groups, when told that if he understood physics he'd see who his concerns were invalid, proudly bellowed "THE ONLY PHYSICS I EVER TOOK WAS EX LAX!" and kept right on opposing nuclear energy. Even when the physics were simplified and explained, he kept right on opposing it.
You could explain the difference between what was likely a poorly built, maintained and operate storage facility in beirut and a well constructed, regularly inspected and professionally maintained facility in Australia, it would not matter to them.
Many people take a stand based on their gut instincts, and no amount of truth will change it.
Grey Templar wrote: Its pretty crazy. It really is shocking how few people are dead. With that explosion I would have expected a few thousand.
Fortunately most of the immediate dock area is mostly big warehouses with relatively few people, and the large structure (grain silos?) next to the immediate ground zero looks like it tanked a lot of the blast for the area behind it, but yeah, surprised there's not more as well. That said 85% of Lebanon's cereal/wheat imports went up in that explosion apparently.
On another note, This gives excellent satellite before/after pics of the area, and the crater left behind is particularly...stunning.
It's also got a pic of the...lackluster handling and storage of the ammonium nitrate being packed away.
Vaktathi wrote: It's pretty horrifying how common stories like this actually are.
Now there's calls in Australia for a plant that has significantly more nitrate than what caused the Beirut explosion to "do something" about removing it to avoid a similar accident.
Seems people don't understand the difference between carefully stored and highly regulated explosive material and a bunch of ammonium nitrate sitting in bags in some open-air warehouse down by the docks.
Yeah, that's my neck of the woods (the local store of ammonium nitrate). One of the brothers-in-law works next door to it. There are vacuum systems to keep dust down (on top of a fethload of other anti-explosion/fire precautions in place). It also doesn't stick around for long. It gets made, it gets shipped on a pretty regular basis. The Beirut one was next door to a grain store, and it was considered "dusty" at the best of times, in a city with a known disregard for the rules and regs, and where corruption is openly rife. Anyone who has worked with large volumes of powdered material can probably tell you about their "dust explosion" safety inductions.
One of the arguments against it being intentional by one of the power groups within the country is that it hit the grain silo whilst it was full, which basically means food is going to become a major problem. If your military group wants to take over its hard when what you take over is a region that has little food and you've just spent all your money on weapons.
Targeting food is more of an outside attacking/defending force move because you deny your opponent food, whilst keeping your own. When its a civil war and all sides rely on some of the same key infrastructure then you are denying your opponent and yourself.
What's more surprising is that the material managed to actually stay in that location for 6 years and not get parcelled out or stolen or otherwise slipped through the net to the military groups.
Overread wrote: One of the arguments against it being intentional by one of the power groups within the country is that it hit the grain silo whilst it was full, which basically means food is going to become a major problem. If your military group wants to take over its hard when what you take over is a region that has little food and you've just spent all your money on weapons.
Targeting food is more of an outside attacking/defending force move because you deny your opponent food, whilst keeping your own. When its a civil war and all sides rely on some of the same key infrastructure then you are denying your opponent and yourself.
What's more surprising is that the material managed to actually stay in that location for 6 years and not get parcelled out or stolen or otherwise slipped through the net to the military groups.
Was it still the full amount left though?
Chances are some was sold off bit by bit for bombmaking etc...
Insane amount of damage caused. Interestingly enough, that is a ship that has capsized due to the force of the blast.
I mentioned this in the conspiracy thread but I'll re-iterate it here. It is very highly likely that it was an ammonium nitrate explosion, namely due to the colour of the smoke/vapour after the explosion, it is a fairly unique side effect, well, not fully unique but not many chemicals have red smoke when they burn/evaporate and combined with the size of the smoke clouds and explosion, it's almost conclusive it was ammonium nitrate.
As I mentioned in that thread also, if it was a planned attack, it was most likely sabotage of the chemical storage, not a bomb per say (unless a small bomb was used to trigger). There's also suspected reports that fireworks were stored in the locality of the ammonium nitrate storage... Which is an amazing level of incompetence/not giving an F if it is true....
I've read some stuff about some welding works on the warehouses setting fire to the fireworks, which in turn spread to the ammonium nitrate but as with all such things I'll take it with a grain of salt. Wouldn't be the first welding fire ever though, so plausible at least.
This hits close-ish to home a bit considering my local port handles way more than 3ktons of ammonium nitrate regularly. Storage is spread out in multiple smaller stacks though, and I'm confident there's more security measures in place as well.
Theres word on the IExpE site of a study showing the possibility of AN spontaneously detonating/deflagrating if stored in sufficient quantity, due to the heat it creates, presumably when under pressure. I can't find this study however. I'm more inclined to believe an accidental fire or spark causing a self sustaining reaction (AN is an oxidising agent) leading to deflagration then detonation.
Matt Swain wrote: The Israeli nuke claim is so stupid it's stunning. I guess i shouldn't be surprised but i was.
Where do i begin? No EMP, no radiation, no flashburn...in short no charismatic signature of a nuclear explosion no matter how small.
Plus I'm sure there's plenty of explosive reside from AN left all over the area.
Lastly, a nuke of any size is expensive, a fuel air bomb would have done this cheaper.
But of course reason, science, facts, etc won;t matter and we'll see a wave of ilsmaic attacks on israel over this...
I’m really hoping that Israel are smart enough to try and be first on the ground with aid and assistance. Lord knows that area of the world could do with improved international relations and they have a real opportunity to be the good guy in a very visible way.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I've read some stuff about some welding works on the warehouses setting fire to the fireworks, which in turn spread to the ammonium nitrate but as with all such things I'll take it with a grain of salt. Wouldn't be the first welding fire ever though, so plausible at least.
This hits close-ish to home a bit considering my local port handles way more than 3ktons of ammonium nitrate regularly. Storage is spread out in multiple smaller stacks though, and I'm confident there's more security measures in place as well.
I believe it ferments, and whilst is dangerous and flammable anyway, it was this fermentation of the substance and build up of pressure that caused the blast, I think a lot of countries stores AN in various amounts of quantities, so I wouldn't worry too much. Also, a lot of countries store all sorts of dangerous stuff all over, as long as it is looked after properly it is fine.
There was an AN explosion in china some years back, unfortunately, it seems to go hand in hand with countries that have lapsed standards (don't care about it's citizens) compared to us in EU that this is a danger.
There was an AN explosion in china some years back, unfortunately, it seems to go hand in hand with countries that have lapsed standards (don't care about it's citizens) compared to us in EU that this is a danger.
This article claims that the 2750 tonnes of AN would equal 1,800 tonnes of TNT. Not sure how valid the site is but it seems like the explosive equivalent thing is easily checked.
There was an AN explosion in china some years back, unfortunately, it seems to go hand in hand with countries that have lapsed standards (don't care about it's citizens) compared to us in EU that this is a danger.
I was talking about this yesterday at the gym, I remembered the explosion, and it being a big one, had no other memory, including country or what the fuel was.
There was an AN explosion in china some years back, unfortunately, it seems to go hand in hand with countries that have lapsed standards (don't care about it's citizens) compared to us in EU that this is a danger.
So something i was thinking. I saw a real time video of the explsosion.
It looks exactly like a mushroom cloud, and almsot everyone knows that mushrooms clouds explosions might mean a nuke.
I would bet that, for atleast a few moments, quite a few people thought they where getting nuked, imagine how scary that was.
hotsauceman1 wrote: So something i was thinking. I saw a real time video of the explsosion.
It looks exactly like a mushroom cloud, and almsot everyone knows that mushrooms clouds explosions might mean a nuke.
I would bet that, for atleast a few moments, quite a few people thought they where getting nuked, imagine how scary that was.
I mean, even if the AN explosive power was only half or a third that of an equivalent amount of TNT, that's actually solidly within tactical mini-nuke yield range of ~1Kt, aside from not having the deal with fallout, they might as well have been nuked.
Even more scary, imagine if it happened in a country with nuclear weapons, even if it was not for very long, there would have been some very tense questions/debates going on for a short amount of time including readying their arsenal.... grim
I believe it ferments, and whilst is dangerous and flammable anyway, it was this fermentation of the substance and build up of pressure that caused the blast, I think a lot of countries stores AN in various amounts of quantities, so I wouldn't worry too much. Also, a lot of countries store all sorts of dangerous stuff all over, as long as it is looked after properly it is fine.
According to people who claim to know this stuff, AN does not degrade into more dangerous or unstable form over time, unlike some other explosives. However, it does turn into sort of tough hardened paste, which makes it more difficult to handle. In the old days if AN had became too hard, they actually used dynamite to loosen up the mixture, which turned out to be not the best idea ever.
Apparently, there was no 'fireworks warehouse'. Stuff which you see going pop in the video before the major explosions is just small bits of AN blowing up the heat. The fire reportedly began from a welding job meant to close some entrances to the warehouse to stop potential thievery.
As noted, port authorities had worried about the warehouse for years, but higher-ups ignored it all, because moving the stuff costs money. I guess they were not considering how much a new Beirut would cost.
I imagine people at the facility raised this issue several times and were ignored or threatened, now what passes for government in lebanon will go after and convict those same people.
Matt Swain wrote: I imagine people at the facility raised this issue several times and were ignored or threatened, now what passes for government in lebanon will go after and convict those same people.
And this is why you should allways maintain a System that threathens the governing and not the other Way around...
Or you devolve the government , which also works , because it turns the governed into governing at the Same time.
I believe it ferments, and whilst is dangerous and flammable anyway, it was this fermentation of the substance and build up of pressure that caused the blast, I think a lot of countries stores AN in various amounts of quantities, so I wouldn't worry too much. Also, a lot of countries store all sorts of dangerous stuff all over, as long as it is looked after properly it is fine.
According to people who claim to know this stuff, AN does not degrade into more dangerous or unstable form over time, unlike some other explosives. However, it does turn into sort of tough hardened paste, which makes it more difficult to handle. In the old days if AN had became too hard, they actually used dynamite to loosen up the mixture, which turned out to be not the best idea ever.
Apparently, there was no 'fireworks warehouse'. Stuff which you see going pop in the video before the major explosions is just small bits of AN blowing up the heat. The fire reportedly began from a welding job meant to close some entrances to the warehouse to stop potential thievery.
Welding job.
Yeah, no words to follow that up with.
Though let's be honest. Whoever does have responsibility for this tragedy is either going to be spending money to cut ties or desperately trying to skip town. We're already hearing reports of mobs wanting justice in the area.
Anyone claiming its a nuke needs to do some research go to the museums, listen to the stories of the dead and the survivors and then feel free to claim its the same thing. Its nowhere near the same thing.
Anyone claiming its a nuke needs to do some research go to the museums, listen to the stories of the dead and the survivors and then feel free to claim its the same thing. Its nowhere near the same thing.
Wasn't it a bit too muted in light and heat to be nuclear? From what we saw it seemed like mostly an explosion of force, a shockwave with little of the other effects associated with a nuclear blast.
Anyone claiming its a nuke needs to do some research go to the museums, listen to the stories of the dead and the survivors and then feel free to claim its the same thing. Its nowhere near the same thing.
Wasn't it a bit too muted in light and heat to be nuclear? From what we saw it seemed like mostly an explosion of force, a shockwave with little of the other effects associated with a nuclear blast.
Yep. About the only similar thing was the mushroom cloud, and really those are just a sign of a really big explosion, not just nukes.
The only people calling this a nuke are the ones who reflexively blame "the jooze" for everything bad that happens. They're idiots. The fact so many electronic cameras recorded this without any flicker proves there was no emp hence no nuke.
Matt Swain wrote: The only people calling this a nuke are the ones who reflexively blame "the jooze" for everything bad that happens. They're idiots. The fact so many electronic cameras recorded this without any flicker proves there was no emp hence no nuke.
Obviously this is a next-gen nuke that doesn’t have an EMP. Those would disable the chips they are implanting into people. This was a test, wake up sheeple!
/sarcasm (in case it wasn’t obvious)
I do think mushroom cloud=nuke in most people’s eyes. And with the level of damage it’s not an unreasonable first conclusion to jump to. That’s a lot of devastation for one blast. But once you start looking closer, it’s clearly not a nuke.
At least from the information that They are allowing out.
Good longish read at the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/x2iutcqf1g/beirut-blast The whole sorry saga seems to full of corruption and incompetence from before the nitrate even arrived in the port. The before and after aerial photos are particularly striking.
cody.d. wrote: Though let's be honest. Whoever does have responsibility for this tragedy is either going to be spending money to cut ties or desperately trying to skip town. We're already hearing reports of mobs wanting justice in the area.
Apparently lots of port works and officials have been rounded up and arrested. Whoever ends up being deemed 'responsible' for this is probably going to be surprised, right up until the moment they're hung by the neck.
Though maybe not, since protests have turn to occupying the foreign ministry and erecting a gallows, and burning portraits of the President.
Meanwhile he's still blaming 'maybe some sort of rocket attack' and refusing an international investigation.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53704998
This may actually turn into a regime change. Or get more complicated if a neighbor decides there doesn't need to be a Lebanon anymore (probably Syria, though they're busy with their own issues still; and Israel doing it, even in the name of protecting people, would turn into a regional crisis)
Hopefully not veering too close to the forbidden p-word, but I’m sure that Israel will look at a possible revolt/revolution as an opportunity to try and encourage a more sympathetic group into power (or at least try and stop any hardline loonies from seizing yet another country). Certainly behind the scenes manipulation rather than active involvement though.
Jadenim wrote: Hopefully not veering too close to the forbidden p-word, but I’m sure that Israel will look at a possible revolt/revolution as an opportunity to try and encourage a more sympathetic group into power (or at least try and stop any hardline loonies from seizing yet another country). Certainly behind the scenes manipulation rather than active involvement though.
The country allready was seized by Hardliner loonies and governed by them though...
Ammonium nitrate is actually pretty hard to make explode.
Which is why any explosive made with it, usually has something else mixed in with it ("contaminated" ammonium nitrate is exceedingly easy to make explode) like a fuel oil, or grain dust.
It was also stored right next door to the grain silos, which are a dust explosion factory at the best of times. It's REALLY easy to make dust explode. That explosion CAN set fire to ammonium nitrate, and when any of the dust from the silo gets mixed with the AN, that dust explosion CAN kick off the AN.
The safety standards for that area have been considered lax for some decades. It may be surpassed by US "standards" soon, though - given the scrapping of regs about it. It wasn't a purpose built storehouse for AN (which usually have dust and contaminant mitigation systems built into them, at least they do here).
For those ignorant savages in the press who called it a "nuke" ...
Nukes give off a gamma and x-ray burst when the go boom as well as the emp effect.
This has the side effect of killing electronics - and ALL the footage shot of the explosion was digital. Much of it shot from cellphones.
Hard to shoot cellphone video with a brick.
Also, blindness from the flash.
chromedog wrote: Ammonium nitrate is actually pretty hard to make explode.
Which is why any explosive made with it, usually has something else mixed in with it ("contaminated" ammonium nitrate is exceedingly easy to make explode) like a fuel oil, or grain dust.
I've seen this claim repeated quite literally verbatim since this incident happened.
I've yet to see anyone explain it. I don't say this to imply it is impossible, but to express skepticism at what appears to be (pardon my french) random internet bs which is simply being read and regurgitated.
If it was EASY to make AN explode, then you wouldn't need to mix it with a fuel oil in order to make it go boom. You never hear of AN being used just by itself as an explosive. Just as a fertiliser. It BURNS well, though.
Even then, ANFO STILL requires an explosive to kick it off. It doesn't have to be a BIG one, just a bang. A blasting cap will do it. A dust explosion in close proximity will do it. (and dust explosions only require a spark to set off. Like welding near a grain silo next door ... ).
The AN was kept in a warehouse NOT designed for the storage of it, in a port that undoubtedly sees a LOOOOT of diesel powered ships come in and out. Diesels put out a LOT of crap in their exhaust which can travel for some distance, and includes unburnt oil in it. It settles EVERYWHERE nearby. Like on improperly secured AN 1000kg bags of AN.
It's not like granulated Potassium Hypochlorite, which will go woof in a variety of conditions - from exposure to sunlight, to getting wet - this is why pool chemicals have specific instructions for use. (the granules have to be kept dry, as it has a rather 'energetic' reaction with water. The liquid kind is more friendly).
Most explosives require two components. fuel and oxidiser. the faster it oxidises, the more energetic the reaction and the faster the fuel is consumed. Like KClO and brake fluid.
Im not going to claim to be a Chemistry expert But if there was contaminated or premixed AN, and that got set off, would the be enough to set off the others that are not?
chromedog wrote: Ammonium nitrate is actually pretty hard to make explode.
Which is why any explosive made with it, usually has something else mixed in with it ("contaminated" ammonium nitrate is exceedingly easy to make explode) like a fuel oil, or grain dust.
I've seen this claim repeated quite literally verbatim since this incident happened.
I've yet to see anyone explain it. I don't say this to imply it is impossible, but to express skepticism at what appears to be (pardon my french) random internet bs which is simply being read and regurgitated.
It's not internet BS. The AN is the oxidising agent. As chromedog mentioned, there is usually a fuel component required to make them practical as an explosive. Aluminium powder (ammonal or anal) sugar (ANS) or petrol (ANFO). These generally need to be initiated with a high explosive detonator to detonate themselves(and will be even more explosive if tightly confined into palm oil containers courtesy of Terry Taliban) but in a large enough quantity, a fire in bulk AN will self sustain (as it's an oxidising agent) which can accelerate to deflagration, then to detonation.
If it was EASY to make AN explode, then you wouldn't need to mix it with a fuel oil in order to make it go boom.
If it was hard, I feel like I shouldn't be able to find 20+ ammonium nitrate disasters in the last twenty years. A lot of them list the cause simply as 'fire'. It doesn't seem that hard.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Im not going to claim to be a Chemistry expert But if there was contaminated or premixed AN, and that got set off, would the be enough to set off the others that are not?
This is kind of freaky, but if you watch the videos you know how you can see cook offs before the big boom?
In witness accounts of the Texas City disaster, people standing and watching the Grandcamp could see the sea around the ship boiling. I'm also not a chemist, but I remember basic high school chemistry. Fire produces water vapor. Water vapor + heat produces pressure. The right combination of heat and water in an enclosed space is a vicious cycle. The Grandcamp didn't explode because ammonium nitrate caught fire. It exploded because the captain (who also probably wasn't a chemist) sealed the ship and pumped steam into the hold in an attempt to put out a fire. The fire, steam, and the presence of an oxidizer just meant pressure built until the ship exploded. Watching the video of the fire right before the big boom it seems kind of obvious that the blast was caused by an improperly stored substance catching fire and burning off until pressure built and turned the fire into a blast.
Taking what chromedog says:
(and dust explosions only require a spark to set off. Like welding near a grain silo next door ... ).
It really really doesn't seem hard. If dust can serve as a fuel and the welder started a fire, it seems kind of straight forward to me.
It's not internet BS.
It sounds like internet BS and it reads like internet BS, especially because I keep seeing the exact same wording used, like people are just repeating what they've heard and don't really understand what it means.
I'm actually not trying to be an donkey-cave here. My skepticism of that comment and the people who keep making it is extremely high because I've seen the exact comment multiple times in multiple places. I find it really suspicious when vague qualifications start getting repeated word for word all over the place, especially when they appear counter-factual.
The AN is the oxidising agent
I know what an oxidizing agent is. I also know the events of the Texas City disaster, where no explosives was used or present. I can also find other incidents in the past 20 years where mere fire seemed sufficient to cause explosions with this stuff. The Port Neal fertilizer plant explosion didn't even involve a fire, merely steam and decomposition. High quantities and improper storage seem sufficient to cause an explosion under circumstances and I find it hard to believe that so many regulations surround the storage of this stuff if it's so benign on its own. It's enough to make the claim "it's actually pretty hard to make it explode" appear utterly counter-factual.
a fire in bulk AN will self sustain (as it's an oxidising agent) which can accelerate to deflagration, then to detonation.
And this sounds a lot like it might be the chain of events as I describe above. Unless deflagration has some other definition I'm unfamiliar with.
Matt Swain wrote: The only people calling this a nuke are the ones who reflexively blame "the jooze" for everything bad that happens. They're idiots. The fact so many electronic cameras recorded this without any flicker proves there was no emp hence no nuke.
Obviously this is a next-gen nuke that doesn’t have an EMP. Those would disable the chips they are implanting into people. This was a test, wake up sheeple!
/sarcasm (in case it wasn’t obvious)
I do think mushroom cloud=nuke in most people’s eyes. And with the level of damage it’s not an unreasonable first conclusion to jump to. That’s a lot of devastation for one blast. But once you start looking closer, it’s clearly not a nuke.
At least from the information that They are allowing out.
Yeah I kinda got it was nice sarcasm.
As to a nuke that did not produce emp or conventional radioactive fallout, I wonder if a speck of antimatter could do something like that. I imagine the amount of antimatter needed to produce this blast would be barely if at all visible to a naked eye. I'm not sure if matter/antimatter mutual annihilation produced an emp or any normal radioactive fallout, i mean there's no fission element involved in an antimatter blast. So that could be your cynically suggested "next gen nuke".
I suppose sooner or later a con nut wil claim it was a test of an antimatter weapon. I'm going to pre empt it by saying anyone who could make, store, transport and deploy the amount of antimatter needed to make this blast would probably have better things to do than blow up beirut with it.
If it was EASY to make AN explode, then you wouldn't need to mix it with a fuel oil in order to make it go boom.
If it was hard, I feel like I shouldn't be able to find 20+ ammonium nitrate disasters in the last twenty years. A lot of them list the cause simply as 'fire'. It doesn't seem that hard.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Im not going to claim to be a Chemistry expert But if there was contaminated or premixed AN, and that got set off, would the be enough to set off the others that are not?
This is kind of freaky, but if you watch the videos you know how you can see cook offs before the big boom?
In witness accounts of the Texas City disaster, people standing and watching the Grandcamp could see the sea around the ship boiling. I'm also not a chemist, but I remember basic high school chemistry. Fire produces water vapor. Water vapor + heat produces pressure. The right combination of heat and water in an enclosed space is a vicious cycle. The Grandcamp didn't explode because ammonium nitrate caught fire. It exploded because the captain (who also probably wasn't a chemist) sealed the ship and pumped steam into the hold in an attempt to put out a fire. The fire, steam, and the presence of an oxidizer just meant pressure built until the ship exploded. Watching the video of the fire right before the big boom it seems kind of obvious that the blast was caused by an improperly stored substance catching fire and burning off until pressure built and turned the fire into a blast.
Taking what chromedog says:
(and dust explosions only require a spark to set off. Like welding near a grain silo next door ... ).
It really really doesn't seem hard. If dust can serve as a fuel and the welder started a fire, it seems kind of straight forward to me.
It's not internet BS.
It sounds like internet BS and it reads like internet BS, especially because I keep seeing the exact same wording used, like people are just repeating what they've heard and don't really understand what it means.
I'm actually not trying to be an donkey-cave here. My skepticism of that comment and the people who keep making it is extremely high because I've seen the exact comment multiple times in multiple places. I find it really suspicious when vague qualifications start getting repeated word for word all over the place, especially when they appear counter-factual.
The AN is the oxidising agent
I know what an oxidizing agent is. I also know the events of the Texas City disaster, where no explosives was used or present. I can also find other incidents in the past 20 years where mere fire seemed sufficient to cause explosions with this stuff. The Port Neal fertilizer plant explosion didn't even involve a fire, merely steam and decomposition. High quantities and improper storage seem sufficient to cause an explosion under circumstances and I find it hard to believe that so many regulations surround the storage of this stuff if it's so benign on its own. It's enough to make the claim "it's actually pretty hard to make it explode" appear utterly counter-factual.
a fire in bulk AN will self sustain (as it's an oxidising agent) which can accelerate to deflagration, then to detonation.
And this sounds a lot like it might be the chain of events as I describe above. Unless deflagration has some other definition I'm unfamiliar with.
Nah I think we're on the same page, just different paragraphs. So technically from an explosive point of view, AN is fairly unreactive, you couldn't make an IED and just use AN on its own as the explosive charge. It needs the additional fuel to allow it to react explosively when subject to the explosive force of the detonator. But when its subjected to fire, as with all oxidising agents, it has that capacity to self accelerate, in this case to detonation, as seen by the various disasters you mention.
Basically, if the newspapers refer to it as a 'highly explosive material' OWTTE, it's technically incorrect. To go into technical geek terms, it's hazard division would not be 1(explosive) it would probably be 6 or whatever division oxidising agents are. Can't remember off the top of my head. Similar to how petrol is classed as a flammable liquid, but does have the capacity to explode under certain circumstances.
Matt Swain wrote: The only people calling this a nuke are the ones who reflexively blame "the jooze" for everything bad that happens. They're idiots. The fact so many electronic cameras recorded this without any flicker proves there was no emp hence no nuke.
Obviously this is a next-gen nuke that doesn’t have an EMP. Those would disable the chips they are implanting into people. This was a test, wake up sheeple!
/sarcasm (in case it wasn’t obvious)
I do think mushroom cloud=nuke in most people’s eyes. And with the level of damage it’s not an unreasonable first conclusion to jump to. That’s a lot of devastation for one blast. But once you start looking closer, it’s clearly not a nuke.
At least from the information that They are allowing out.
Yeah I kinda got it was nice sarcasm.
As to a nuke that did not produce emp or conventional radioactive fallout, I wonder if a speck of antimatter could do something like that. I imagine the amount of antimatter needed to produce this blast would be barely if at all visible to a naked eye. I'm not sure if matter/antimatter mutual annihilation produced an emp or any normal radioactive fallout, i mean there's no fission element involved in an antimatter blast. So that could be your cynically suggested "next gen nuke".
I suppose sooner or later a con nut wil claim it was a test of an antimatter weapon. I'm going to pre empt it by saying anyone who could make, store, transport and deploy the amount of antimatter needed to make this blast would probably have better things to do than blow up beirut with it.
Given that matter/antimatter annihilation apparently results in photons or exotic particles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilation), it’s certainly not going to be free from radiation or EMP. In fact, it’s probably exactly the same as the energy from a nuclear weapon, as the energy in a nuclear reaction comes from conversion of matter into energy, but in a more round about manner (effectively when you do division or multiplication on an atom, one part of physics rounds up and doesn’t carry the one and another part of physics really, really doesn’t like that...)
The most amazing part about it if it were an antimatter weapon (which it is not), is that firstly they'd go to all the trouble of creating a container for it, and then go and waste that by turning it into a bomb rather than extract or try to at least all of the other theoretical benefits of contained antimatter.
And then, to go and use it in a port, with the total damage value being $15B (a lot of money to us, but in the grand scheme of things it really isn't as well, there would be far more higher priority targets globally for any country with the resources to construct such a weapon)....
If a country were also creating antimatter weapons, and they had achieved it, you would assume they wouldn't want ANY other country to know about it also, and you wouldn't want the international condemnation of using a WMD.
Yeah, you all do get I wasn't seriously suggesting it was an anti matter bomb, right? After beating down the "nuke" idea for numerous reasons I saw a poster had made a good joke about people claiming it was a secret "next gen nuke" that didn't have fallout or EMP. I just decided to play on that with the idea a 'next gen nuke' might be an antimatter device.
But seriously, I thought some con nut might try to bring that up once a normal nuke was disproved.
cody.d. wrote: Though let's be honest. Whoever does have responsibility for this tragedy is either going to be spending money to cut ties or desperately trying to skip town. We're already hearing reports of mobs wanting justice in the area.
Apparently lots of port works and officials have been rounded up and arrested. Whoever ends up being deemed 'responsible' for this is probably going to be surprised, right up until the moment they're hung by the neck.
Though maybe not, since protests have turn to occupying the foreign ministry and erecting a gallows, and burning portraits of the President.
Meanwhile he's still blaming 'maybe some sort of rocket attack' and refusing an international investigation.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53704998
This may actually turn into a regime change. Or get more complicated if a neighbor decides there doesn't need to be a Lebanon anymore (probably Syria, though they're busy with their own issues still; and Israel doing it, even in the name of protecting people, would turn into a regional crisis)
Makes you wonder if it was some sort of safety screw up or if someone who knew what they were doing was trying to instigate something. In all likleyhood though the cause of it is likely gone or will be forgotten as people guide their anger and discontentment somewhere else. As it seems the President is that target huh?
Matt Swain wrote:Yeah, you all do get I wasn't seriously suggesting it was an anti matter bomb, right? After beating down the "nuke" idea for numerous reasons I saw a poster had made a good joke about people claiming it was a secret "next gen nuke" that didn't have fallout or EMP. I just decided to play on that with the idea a 'next gen nuke' might be an antimatter device.
But seriously, I thought some con nut might try to bring that up once a normal nuke was disproved.
Don’t worry, I knew you weren’t being serious, it just got me thinking about what would be the output from an antimatter device? Turns out, probably very similar to a nuke (maybe less fall out?)
cody.d. wrote: Though let's be honest. Whoever does have responsibility for this tragedy is either going to be spending money to cut ties or desperately trying to skip town. We're already hearing reports of mobs wanting justice in the area.
Apparently lots of port works and officials have been rounded up and arrested. Whoever ends up being deemed 'responsible' for this is probably going to be surprised, right up until the moment they're hung by the neck.
Though maybe not, since protests have turn to occupying the foreign ministry and erecting a gallows, and burning portraits of the President.
Meanwhile he's still blaming 'maybe some sort of rocket attack' and refusing an international investigation.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53704998
This may actually turn into a regime change. Or get more complicated if a neighbor decides there doesn't need to be a Lebanon anymore (probably Syria, though they're busy with their own issues still; and Israel doing it, even in the name of protecting people, would turn into a regional crisis)
Makes you wonder if it was some sort of safety screw up or if someone who knew what they were doing was trying to instigate something. In all likleyhood though the cause of it is likely gone or will be forgotten as people guide their anger and discontentment somewhere else. As it seems the President is that target huh?
A) never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence and B) sneaking in to the port to try and initiate a questionable cargo of AN is real Saturday morning cartoon villain stuff. There’s so many ways it can go wrong and what’s the target, beyond general destabilisation? And if you’re going for that, just start a run on the banks or plant incriminating leaks or plain old assassination of key targets; there’s a bunch of more subtle ways to upset a regime. And if you don’t care about subtle or collateral damage, car bombs at key locations (power stations, reservoirs, etc.) in an ongoing campaign would be far more effective. This is a major, tragic, event, but people move on and rebuild with surprising resilience from one-off catastrophe’s.
It was no anti-matter bomb. It was most obviously a stealthed brilliant pebble from the orbiting death space station that was dropped to test their system -- and they chose this target both to reduce faith in existing institutions and to hide the evidence of a flying crowbar from low earth orbit suddenly impacting a warehouse.
Duh, man, stick with the times, its Star Wars up there. Unless, of course, it really is dumb to do welding in a building with kilotons of explosives sitting around.
Makes you wonder if it was some sort of safety screw up or if someone who knew what they were doing was trying to instigate something. In all likleyhood though the cause of it is likely gone or will be forgotten as people guide their anger and discontentment somewhere else. As it seems the President is that target huh?
Signs just point to a screw-up combined with general background corruption (in the form of people passing the 'not my job' buck)
The president is playing chase the scapegoat with the population. He's trying to find one, and protestors are largely coming to the conclusion that this is the latest of 'too much.' Lebanon hasn't been a happy or even vaguely content country for a long time. So less food, less supplies, less work on top of a fresh pile of deaths and injuries? Blaming the person in charge is a fairly reasonable take.
Its likely also extra galling that the AN could (and should have been) sold off by the government, which then could have brought in more food and supplies. Or just, you know, used as fertilizer by Lebanese farmers. It was impounded and abandoned by the companies involved in moving it to its destination in Africa, so it could have been put to good use for Lebanon, and so a potential windfall just turned into a major disaster.
Matt Swain wrote: The only people calling this a nuke are the ones who reflexively blame "the jooze" for everything bad that happens. They're idiots. The fact so many electronic cameras recorded this without any flicker proves there was no emp hence no nuke.
Obviously this is a next-gen nuke that doesn’t have an EMP. Those would disable the chips they are implanting into people. This was a test, wake up sheeple!
/sarcasm (in case it wasn’t obvious)
I do think mushroom cloud=nuke in most people’s eyes. And with the level of damage it’s not an unreasonable first conclusion to jump to. That’s a lot of devastation for one blast. But once you start looking closer, it’s clearly not a nuke.
At least from the information that They are allowing out.
Yeah I kinda got it was nice sarcasm.
As to a nuke that did not produce emp or conventional radioactive fallout, I wonder if a speck of antimatter could do something like that. I imagine the amount of antimatter needed to produce this blast would be barely if at all visible to a naked eye. I'm not sure if matter/antimatter mutual annihilation produced an emp or any normal radioactive fallout, i mean there's no fission element involved in an antimatter blast. So that could be your cynically suggested "next gen nuke".
I suppose sooner or later a con nut wil claim it was a test of an antimatter weapon. I'm going to pre empt it by saying anyone who could make, store, transport and deploy the amount of antimatter needed to make this blast would probably have better things to do than blow up beirut with it.
Not enough gamma radiation for antimatter, and nowhere near bright enough. Plus the red smoke.
Maybe going off topic here but if you're interested in realistic nukes there's a book called "The science of battlestar galactica" that goes into a lot of very real detail on the science of nuclear weapons.
It details various types of nukes, from tac nukes to multi megaton warheads, along with "clean" neutron bomb style nukes which is why caprica city was largely intact and habitable and at the other end the massive "salted" nuked which is why the original earth was still unihabitably radioactive after 2,000 years.
There is also factual information on what radiation does to humans.
Since this conversation drifted over to nukes I thought I'd offer some educational material on the subject and plug a damn good book too.
At this point only idiots and people secretly pushing an evil agenda are still pushing the "deliberate bombing" claim.
Yeah its important to realise that this explosion isn't the first of the country's problems. It's been a hotbed of issues for a long time and the riots/protests are the reaction of a population on-edge who just suffered a horrific disaster.
Overread wrote: Yeah its important to realise that this explosion isn't the first of the country's problems. It's been a hotbed of issues for a long time and the riots/protests are the reaction of a population on-edge who just suffered a horrific disaster.
Considering that the population, that is this divided else, pretty much unilaterally wanted to see the government at the very least ousted or with a rope around their necks, it might just lead to positive result, IF , they get the support and can maintain the momentum.
Funnily enough the swiss ambassador to Lebanon has called for aid, but demanded that no money go to any governmental or governmental related group.
I don't know how much money will be spoken, so far it looks like 4 million $ atleast which , i guess whilest a pretty penny, is probably not even close enough to solve the damage of the explosion, much less actually strengthening civilian self organisation like f.e. what has been dubbed over here as shovel brigades of civilian volunteers that have selforganised to atleast get rid of the debris from the explosion.
The real question is, will this be the straw that broke the camels back and what are the consequences.
The main issue would be that internal divisions respark again, and considering how devastating the first civil war was, i hope not.
How will the paramilitary structures react to a change in power, last but not least the Hizbollah..
How many heads will roll? Revolutions and their tendency to purge personell, can for a long time damage administration and other structures...
How will the global players react, France comes to mind, but also the EU, USA, and for certain the local hegemons duking it out Saudi arabia and iran.
Local minorities and the role they play and their loyalities...
Lebanon has been a gak show for a long time. It will take alot of time regardless what happens to solve the most pressing issues like rampant infaltion, etc.
Ok, to be honest who cares enough about beirut to pull this off as an attack? Who would pull it off then not claim credit for it?
The only possibly viable conspiracy theory i could even look at without wrinkling my nose is some radical group did it then tries to blame israel to drum up more hate and attacks on israel.
That's the only CS I see that pretty much isn't DOA.
Odd are this was just a total SNAFU situation that went FUBAR. Take a city that has along history of destruction and devastation, add in a generally weak and unpopular government holding on by force, create a malaise of despair, apathy, indifference and people just struggling to survive with little energy or time to do things right let alone above and beyond the call, such as checking into the long stored AN, and just wait. No deliberate action required.
Getting away from the "Was it a bombing?" debate I wonder how much aid has reached beirut yet? What nations and pledging/sending aid? Have mobile hospitals arrived? Is food being shipped in? Are shelters being built?
One possibility could be that a portion of the AN had been removed from the warehouse for other nefarious purposes, then what was left could be detonated to hide the theft.
I do agree that what has happened is a massive accident, but if I were writing a book I could see the former as a plot...
Seems rather extreme to detonate what was left to hide such a theft; esp when the material didn't appear to be going anywhere any time soon. Chances are you could steal several times from such a supply and no one would notice for quite a while until it was to be moved and tested.
Overread wrote: Seems rather extreme to detonate what was left to hide such a theft; esp when the material didn't appear to be going anywhere any time soon. Chances are you could steal several times from such a supply and no one would notice for quite a while until it was to be moved and tested.
Well, if you are stealing it to use to build bombs then stealing what you can and then blowing it up covers your tracks and also gives you an easy initial attack, after which you can follow up with smaller attacks in the form of car bombs etc.
Though with no group coming out to claim responsibility that seems unlikely as a clandestine op to destabilise the government would not be served by any further bombings unless it was also in areas where it would appear to be the result of government neglect and/or corruption.
Tiennos wrote: Here's my suggestion for another dumb conspiracy theory: France planned this to restore its mandate on Lebanon.
France can't even controll it's own countryside half the bloody time What the hell would they even do if they 'd have to actually babysitt anoter territory that is also hostile to them
Tiennos wrote: Here's my suggestion for another dumb conspiracy theory: France planned this to restore its mandate on Lebanon.
France can't even controll it's own countryside half the bloody time What the hell would they even do if they 'd have to actually babysitt anoter territory that is also hostile to them
Jk jk but the point still kinda stands.
I did say it was a dumb theory
Seriously though, some people launched a petition for France to take over again. It's never gonna happen, but it's good fuel for the tinfoil-hat types.
Tiennos wrote: Here's my suggestion for another dumb conspiracy theory: France planned this to restore its mandate on Lebanon.
France can't even controll it's own countryside half the bloody time What the hell would they even do if they 'd have to actually babysitt anoter territory that is also hostile to them
Jk jk but the point still kinda stands.
I did say it was a dumb theory
Seriously though, some people launched a petition for France to take over again. It's never gonna happen, but it's good fuel for the tinfoil-hat types.
Tiennos wrote: Here's my suggestion for another dumb conspiracy theory: France planned this to restore its mandate on Lebanon.
France can't even controll it's own countryside half the bloody time What the hell would they even do if they 'd have to actually babysitt anoter territory that is also hostile to them
Jk jk but the point still kinda stands.
I did say it was a dumb theory
Seriously though, some people launched a petition for France to take over again. It's never gonna happen, but it's good fuel for the tinfoil-hat types.
Wait. what? in Lebanon?
I guess if they want too?
I'm not kidding, here it is. I don't know who started that exactly; some people who have absolutely zero confidence in Lebanese politics, I suppose... They didn't get a whole lot of signatures in the end, so it's not like it's a mainstream thing.
Again, not to be hateful but what would anyone want to take over beirut? I mean I get it;' a port city, but who would want the trouble and headaches of owning it assuming there's enough solidity there to grab onto?
Matt Swain wrote: Again, not to be hateful but what would anyone want to take over beirut? I mean I get it;' a port city, but who would want the trouble and headaches of owning it assuming there's enough solidity there to grab onto?
Well, Russia, for one. Most of their cooperation with Syria has been with the intent on getting a Mediterranean port [they have a free, 49 year lease on a naval facility (with total sovereignty) at Tartus for their aid, which is about 2 hours up the coast from Beirut], so they can't be completely blocked off in the Black Sea at Istanbul. Beirut would be a functional second choice if things had fallen through there. [Historically, permanent unfettered access to the Mediterranean and Arabian seas has been a Russian goal for centuries- the USSR-Afghan war, for example, was a part of their drive to the sea, and Pakistan would have been next had they not gotten bogged down. Putin seems to have revived that interest by other means]
Iran, for much the same reason. They could do a lot with a permanent presence (naval, air and ground) on that side of the Levant. Same goes for anyone else south of the Suez canal. Suddenly their trade and military prospects are vastly altered.
For the paranoid, Israel, to disrupt the 'northern enemy.'
Still, there's no reason to think that anyone did this.
But coming up with theoretical motives to disrupt or take advantage of a weak political entity is easy-peasy.
An interesting update to this story, which is significant enough I think to not be considered threadcromancy under the "If you have something fantastic to add which is a direct continuation of this original thread then it should be alright to do so" codicil:
News reports and photos taken inside the building before the incident also found that, despite it containing thousands of tons of the explosive material, the warehouse was also used to store 23 tons of fireworks, over 1,000 rubber car tires, and five rolls of slow-burning detonating cord.
There is a 12 minute video reconstruction what exactly happened, using open-source footage shot by people. It's a wild watch.
Ouze wrote: An interesting update to this story, which is significant enough I think to not be considered threadcromancy under the "If you have something fantastic to add which is a direct continuation of this original thread then it should be alright to do so" codicil:
News reports and photos taken inside the building before the incident also found that, despite it containing thousands of tons of the explosive material, the warehouse was also used to store 23 tons of fireworks, over 1,000 rubber car tires, and five rolls of slow-burning detonating cord.
There is a 12 minute video reconstruction what exactly happened, using open-source footage shot by people. It's a wild watch.
As horrible that blast was... I can't help be stare at such destruction.
Definitely wild to watch.
All those annoying OHSA regulations and the like...this is why you store things that goes "boom boom" properly.
Ouze wrote: An interesting update to this story, which is significant enough I think to not be considered threadcromancy under the "If you have something fantastic to add which is a direct continuation of this original thread then it should be alright to do so" codicil:
News reports and photos taken inside the building before the incident also found that, despite it containing thousands of tons of the explosive material, the warehouse was also used to store 23 tons of fireworks, over 1,000 rubber car tires, and five rolls of slow-burning detonating cord.
There is a 12 minute video reconstruction what exactly happened, using open-source footage shot by people. It's a wild watch.
As horrible that blast was... I can't help be stare at such destruction.
Definitely wild to watch.
All those annoying OHSA regulations and the like...this is why you store things that goes "boom boom" properly.
Amen! Preach it brother!
When you hear some people ranting and raving about "big gubmint regyoolayshuns!" just remember they're why things like this don't happen all that often in countries that have them.
Yup. Next time you see some politician on the payroll of some corporation railing against "health and safety gone mad" remember that the regulations they are seeking to cut back were bought in blood.
A Town Called Malus wrote: Yup. Next time you see some politician on the payroll of some corporation railing against "health and safety gone mad" remember that the regulations they are seeking to cut back were bought in blood.
The annoying thing so often with OHS stuff is when it gets stupid trying to chase tiny things that aren't actually dangerous, and misses things that genuinely are dangerous.
We've had a couple of instances at my work where, IMO, the workspace has been made less safe because the desire to follow a safety standard on one thing has made everything else less safe.
Or the other one is when the people in charge of the OHS system and the people who sign off on OHS forms have no real qualification or expertise. I've raised safety issues related to a pretty complicated piece of dangerous equipment that have been ignored by a bunch of safety people who have no fething clue how the equipment even works, while another piece of equipment that is not particuarly dangerous in the hands of a trained operator got removed because apparently it "looked" dangerous.
Sometimes I wonder if the people who understand safety are too smart to put their hand up for the job of safety officer and it ends up falling to people who don't know what they're doing. (I will say one of the safety officers at my work is great and has been super helpful, but in general I've been less than impressed)
People rightfully bitch about improperly implemented OHS systems. Stuff like storing thousands of tons of explosives in a warehouse near a city is less OHS and more completely bloody silly. You don't need to write an OHS document to figure out that something with a blast radius of kilometres should not be stored in one big bundle so close to a populated area. It's not even a case of hindsight being 20/20, people know ammonium nitrate is dangerous and this has happened before (581 people killed in Texas City in 1947) from a very similar volume of the stuff.
My understanding is a lot of early anti-health and safety pushback was more because whilst the concepts were sound, the teaching and implementation were fairly poor. So you had a lot of firms who didn't know what to do, they just knew you had to have a whole new layer of forms for it. So they resented "having" to spend money on specialist firms who were brought in to produce that paperwork.
Today there's a bit more awareness and companies are more apt to do it internally as part of regular staff roles. But there's still a lot of hangover from those early days. Old forms and policies that were "tickbox" correct answers, but poorly implemented or simply wrong for the chosen industry etc...
At its core the concept is sound; it looks to identify problems; rank them and then establish if they are too dangerous to undertake and if so if there are any measures that can lower the danger value. It's basically a formal framework for how to try and ensure safe practice.
Of course there's a lot of flexibility and opinion in things. One tool that's safe for one person is unsafe for another etc... I think there's certainly a lot of scope that those who devise the policies need to either take on board or have direct experience of the workplace to produce efficient sensible guidelines
Naturally most of the 'anti regulationt' types will just bellow "Well they had a choice 'bout workin' dere! Ifn't they dint like it they cooda kwit!"
But hey, most people will understand.
Honestly, i wonder what labor conditions in beirut are like and how they might have factored into this disaster. I'm not expecting anyone to try doing an expose on them tho.
Matt Swain wrote: If some fool says we dont need gubmint regyoolaytin big business, try showing them this little snapshot of the good ol' days.
I don't think I've ever met a person who is actually against safety regulations as a concept, rather they're against the specific implementation of the regulations, and how they function at a business level.
Things like the trope of the safety guy who cares more that an incident report is filled out correctly than whether the person is actually okay, or removing the trip hazard because that's on the safety checklist while ignoring the machine that could cut you in half.
But again, there's safety regulations saying remove trip hazards, use guarding on dangerous machines, put dangerous chemicals in a chemicals cupboard... and then there's "maybe don't store thousands of tons of explosives in one bundle adjacent to a large city", it'll be interesting to see if there's a trustworthy investigation and if they figure out what the failings were that led to this.
You'd think that stuff like that ^^ should be common sense.
I had to argue with one "safety manager" about removing the fire sprinkler (water) in a couple of our DG segregation cupboards because it made the fire risk a lot worse. Then again, he was also the guy who signed off on putting a firehose right next to a general purpose power outlet (very much inside the "Don't do it" radius).
First one: Sodium and potassium metal samples for chemistry classes/labs. Anyone who's done basic chem at school knows this one.
Second one: Pool chlorine. Which has big "KEEP DRY" warnings on it (and specific directions for adding it to water for chlorination). Dumping a lot of water on it in one go isn't one of them.
It is actually specified in the regs for storage of these items that fire sprinklers NOT be fitted to the segregation areas for them.
I hear that chromedog, and those kinds of anecdotes are often trotted out as examples of "health and safety gone mad" etc. But the facts of the case show that the regulations are fine, it is people not following them that is the issue.
As you said, the actual regulations for storing of the materials in question was clear and sensible. The issue you have is with the implementation, in the form of a badly trained safety manager. If the safety officer was well trained, the first step in looking into the issue would be to look at the regulations for storage of those materials and then making adjustments to the storage area for that purpose to bring them in line.
It's like people thinking that the regulations here in the UK are massively draconian because they read a story in the daily mail about a school banning conkers games, or requiring children to wear safety goggles whilst playing. These are isolated incidents in which badly trained safety officers don't understand how to do the job. The Health and Safety Executive, the governmental agency here in the UK in charge of occupational health and safety regulations, has never regulated the game of conkers. There is literally no regulation regarding whether you need eye protection.
When people on the street are talking about bad experiences with health and safety, they are talking about implementation of the regulations (and possibly the implementation of regulations that do not exist, such as the conkers scenario). When the politician in Parliament/Congress/etc. is talking about it they are talking about stripping away the fundamental regulations which are rarely the actual issue affecting the populace at large.
Stripping away those protections will not make the health and safety officer at your workplace better trained. It just means that, when something does go wrong, you are less likely to be able to get compensation due to your workplace having breached the standard agreed upon by the relevant health and safety law.
Honestly I think one big issue with many companies is there are a lot of management positions "in house" that people get promoted into because they did well at a different job lower down the company. However when they are moved into the new role they don't get proper training. The company assumes if they did well before, they will do well in their new role. Even if that role suddenly requires an entirely different set of skills, understandings and such.
I think there are a lot of bad managers/safety officers and other such roles created as a result of promotion policies and practice that don't pair promotion with key skill training.
I was on the safety and security team where I work. Technically still am, but the whole working from home bit makes it mostly irrelevant. I work in medical billing, so there are no hazardous materials, but we do have to rigidly adhere to HIPPA laws for ensuring the safety of Protected Health Information. But people still do stupid stuff, like take selfies in the office without checking what’s in the background, etc. (despite a no camera policy, and being read the riot act in orientation about how serious we take things) But you have a bunch of young people, who don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the rules and regs. “They are not important” “Nobody really cares”. etc. I can totally see how some random guy moving boxes would just shrug and not care. What are the odds something would happen? Not my problem. It will be fine. Just bureaucratic paperwork from people detached from reality.
I’ve had to enforce my share of silly rules. Some make sense for safety (keep the aisles clear in case of fire). Some make sense for corporate (no beverage containers without lids at your desk: we don’t want you spilling on your computer and need to replace it) but all of them are there for a reason. We have to tell people not to let others in the secure building without checking in. We also have to tell them not to flush socks down the toilet. Even before COVID I kept hand sanitizer on my desk because I could not even trust the people in the office to wash their hands after using the bathroom. Basic kindergarten level stuff. People are stupid. People do stupid things. Regs are there for a reason.
I wish we could just trust everyone to act like rational adults. Nope.
Getting people to actually work when they are supposed to be, ya know, working can be a huge task of itself. Actually following rules while doing it?
Overread wrote: Honestly I think one big issue with many companies is there are a lot of management positions "in house" that people get promoted into because they did well at a different job lower down the company. However when they are moved into the new role they don't get proper training. The company assumes if they did well before, they will do well in their new role. Even if that role suddenly requires an entirely different set of skills, understandings and such.
I think there are a lot of bad managers/safety officers and other such roles created as a result of promotion policies and practice that don't pair promotion with key skill training.
Overread wrote: Honestly I think one big issue with many companies is there are a lot of management positions "in house" that people get promoted into because they did well at a different job lower down the company. However when they are moved into the new role they don't get proper training. The company assumes if they did well before, they will do well in their new role. Even if that role suddenly requires an entirely different set of skills, understandings and such.
I think there are a lot of bad managers/safety officers and other such roles created as a result of promotion policies and practice that don't pair promotion with key skill training.
It also has a cousin in the manager who subsequently successfully moves up the ladder through jumping from business to business, as their incompetence is covered by the glowing references he receives from their current employer in order to get rid of them and hoist them onto some other poor sap. This can be seen in The Brittas Empire with a wonderful performance by Chris Barrie (Rimmer from Red Dwarf).
chromedog wrote: You'd think that stuff like that ^^ should be common sense.
At my org, they are trying to restrict the ingress of covid into the data center. They decided they want everyone using the same entrance and leaving out of the same exit, to keep the flow of foot traffic uniform. In practice, that means that everyone comes in the same entrance - the one with a manually actuated, sealed turnstile - so everyone who enters the building touches the same surface and breathes the same stale pocket of air. Penny wise, pound foolish.
And that's to say nothing of the queue that forms when several people show up at the same time and all wait to have their temperatures taken, again all hanging out in the same close area by the same entrance.
I wonder if what caused Beirut was the same kind of management-by-distant-committee.
I hear that chromedog, and those kinds of anecdotes are often trotted out as examples of "health and safety gone mad" etc. But the facts of the case show that the regulations are fine, it is people not following them that is the issue.
As you said, the actual regulations for storing of the materials in question was clear and sensible. The issue you have is with the implementation, in the form of a badly trained safety manager. If the safety officer was well trained, the first step in looking into the issue would be to look at the regulations for storage of those materials and then making adjustments to the storage area for that purpose to bring them in line.
It's like people thinking that the regulations here in the UK are massively draconian because they read a story in the daily mail about a school banning conkers games, or requiring children to wear safety goggles whilst playing. These are isolated incidents in which badly trained safety officers don't understand how to do the job. The Health and Safety Executive, the governmental agency here in the UK in charge of occupational health and safety regulations, has never regulated the game of conkers. There is literally no regulation regarding whether you need eye protection.
When people on the street are talking about bad experiences with health and safety, they are talking about implementation of the regulations (and possibly the implementation of regulations that do not exist, such as the conkers scenario). When the politician in Parliament/Congress/etc. is talking about it they are talking about stripping away the fundamental regulations which are rarely the actual issue affecting the populace at large.
Stripping away those protections will not make the health and safety officer at your workplace better trained. It just means that, when something does go wrong, you are less likely to be able to get compensation due to your workplace having breached the standard agreed upon by the relevant health and safety law.
I haven’t checked recently, but HSE used to have a “Myth of the Month” about stupid application/overreach/blaming of health and safety. A significant portion was “we don’t want to deal with customer complaints/fix poor service, so we’ll just blame health and safety” on the basis that most people have been trained by the tabloids to just nod their head and go “of course, that’s why it’s stupid”.
After a major explosion at a plant in texas the texas state government basically changed the laws on storing dangerous chemicals near people's homes in texas to make it so that companies did not have to announce they had any stored and could refuse to answer if asked.
Now what was that about "should be common sense" again?
Matt Swain wrote: After a major explosion at a plant in texas the texas state government basically changed the laws on storing dangerous chemicals near people's homes in texas to make it so that companies did not have to announce they had any stored and could refuse to answer if asked.
Now what was that about "should be common sense" again?
Not to be rude, but the rest of the world has accepted that the USA has no more common sense when buissness practices are involved.
Matt Swain wrote: After a major explosion at a plant in texas the texas state government basically changed the laws on storing dangerous chemicals near people's homes in texas to make it so that companies did not have to announce they had any stored and could refuse to answer if asked.
Now what was that about "should be common sense" again?
Not to be rude, but the rest of the world has accepted that the USA has no more common sense when buissness practices are involved.
Stating the simple facts of the matter is not being rude.
And while we may not have exactly resigned ourselves to it, yeah, we've pretty much accepted this is the way both major parties want it to be so we're stuck with it.
storm across a million square miles of ocean. 
