Huge Explosion in Beirut today!

[MiniDave]

[94touring]

Saw it earlier, impressive explosion.  Not sure how many may have died.  Heard it was a fireworks plant.

[John Gervais]

I've heard rumblings that the explosion in Beirut was likely a bomb and that the fireworks depot was merely convenient.  As of now, I haven't reached my own conclusion.

Hyacinth's grandparents lived not too far away from the 2004 fireworks disaster in Kolding.

https://tv.tv2.dk/video/U2Vlc3QwMzExMjAwNA

[MiniDave]

There have been musings about all sorts of possibilities, from an Israeli missle attack on a storehouse of Hezbollah arms to who knows what. What is known is that a shipload of ammonium nitrate was offloaded into this warehouse in 2013 where it's been sitting ever since. In some of the videos you can see explosions happening within the fire before the big one goes off. There also are some grain silos right there too, so speculation is that it was a cascade event, where a fire in the fireworks factory set off the warehouse full of ammonium nitrate which then blew up the grain silos.

Who knows whether we'll ever really know the truth, or just the government's spin on the truth, or what.....but a lot of people died and a LOT of people got hurt.

If you watch this one you can see a lot of small explosions happening before the big one goes off

https://twitter.com/obianuju/status/1290684765000085504?s=20

I'm told the orange color of the cloud after the big explosion is indicative of nitrates.

multiple views here   

View from inside a car driving well away from it - blew the windows out and set off air bags

https://twitter.com/ConflictsW/status/1290734610385690624

A closer view of the fireworks or whatever going off in the building

https://twitter.com/VicenteRoqueni/status/1290761058257428490

[gr8kornholio]

Guess they didn't watch the coverage of the explosion in the town of West, TX.  Same thing, fire started in a facility housing I believe was ammonium nitrate.  And after burning a bit BOOM. Flattened everything. 

So from video comparison of that event to this one they are very similar.  This explosion also looks crazy do to the vapor cloud since it was next to water. 

[John Gervais]

Thanks for the additional videos - I hadn't seen the smaller explosions.

It certainly was quite a blast  :-\ - and one has to feel sorry for all the regular folks who've been through an awful lot of 'disaster' - of various types and causes.  Grain silos and fertilizer storage can be quite dangerous - why it was never moved out to the lonely countryside is beyond me.

[94touring]

Just saw this.

[MiniDave]

Holy crap on a cracker...... :-\

This is supposedly what was in the warehouse - 1000lb bags of nitroprill......

[gr8kornholio]

Wasn't ammonium nitrate used in the OKC bombing?  I remember it was fertilizer. Here are some pictures from the explosion in West, TX. The storage is on the right, what was an apartment building is to the left.

https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/04/19/west-texas_custom-0aaf1f6de4847f37f63d44ce41cf4e892694ba33-s700-c85.jpg

[MiniDave]

Yes, mixed with diesel fuel......different situation, but similar results.

[MPlayle]

The production plant in West, TX got the blame for all the collateral damage even though it started out being out in the lonely countryside and the town grew out to the plant.

[John Gervais]

The production plant in West, TX got the blame for all the collateral damage even though it started out being out in the lonely countryside and the town grew out to the plant.

That's usually how it works when people complain about noise from their neighbourhood airport -

[BruceK]

The production plant in West, TX got the blame for all the collateral damage even though it started out being out in the lonely countryside and the town grew out to the plant.

That's usually how it works when people complain about noise from their neighbourhood airport -

Or local racetrack as well. 

[John Gervais]

Indeed!   4.gif