Beirut port explosion

[Spartan Squad]

not a nuke

just the pressure wave encountering the moisture in the air

thread here

I think her first instinct is right. You pack in a bunch of fireworks in a building like this, bye-bye building. I'd be shocked if this was anything more.

 

[Azrael]

early reports say 2700 tons of stored ammonium nitrate

for comparison, the Oklahoma City bomb was a little over two tons of the same stuff

 

[Splendid Splinter]

 

[Michael_ Gee]

The quoted bit is me saying "No, dumbass, it wasn't a nuke." The part about "a big pile of nitrates near a fireworks plant explosion sounds very believable"is me saying that until we hear something solid after the site is examined I think that is a plausible explanation. It could also have been something on the order of a dust explosion, as in a grain elevator or sugar plant, but no one has mentioned such a thing as being nearby.

I have read that there is a big grain elevator at the port, as Lebanon imports most of its wheat from Russia.

 

[Moderator1]

 

[Azrael]

I have read that there is a big grain elevator at the port, as Lebanon imports most of its wheat from Russia.

had one of those go up when I was working overnights in Minneapolis

grain dust is incredibly explosive

 

[Spartan Squad]

had one of those go up when I was working overnights in Minneapolis

grain dust is incredibly explosive

That's one of those things that on it's face, I wouldn't think should ever happen. Now I know why it happens and after getting an explainer, I can wrap my head around it. But still. A big pile of dust can burn, sure, but explode? That used to get me.

 

[Starman]

Remember the 2013 blast in West, Texas?

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

early reports say 2700 tons of stored ammonium nitrate

for comparison, the Oklahoma City bomb was a little over two tons of the same stuff

Yeah, stored … since 2013?!?




M/V Rhosus was still sitting and apparently abandoned at the Port of Beirut. RHOSUS (General cargo vessel)

 

[DanOregon]

Remember the 2013 blast in West, Texas?

Same day as the Marathon bombing if I recall correctly.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

Same day as the Marathon bombing if I recall correctly.

Marathon bombing was 2 days earlier and happened on a Monday. This happened on a Wednesday when we had a juco team busing north on I-35.

 

[Neutral Corner]

Yeah, stored … since 2013?!?




M/V Rhosus was still sitting and apparently abandoned at the Port of Beirut. RHOSUS (General cargo vessel)

It's a miracle that some terrorist group or another hadn't stolen a couple of truckloads of that stuff.

 

[Vombatus]

Remember the 2013 blast in West, Texas?

Looks like that blew everything north, south, east and West.

 

[Chef2]

Looks like that blew everything north, south, east and West.

You son of a *****.

 

[User 150927]

It's a miracle that some terrorist group or another hadn't stolen a couple of truckloads of that stuff.

How do you know they haven't?

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Interesting visualization of how widespread the damage was.

 

[DanOregon]

Worth noting - the Oklahoma City bombing used 2,375 kg of ammonium nitrate, what went off yesterday was 2.5 MILLION kgs.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

I did nothing yesterday but watch videos of the explosion on YouTube over and over. The size of it was unspeakable. Got to be in the top five of all manmade non-nuclear blasts of all time.

 

[Vombatus]

I did nothing yesterday but watch videos of the explosion on YouTube over and over. The size of it was unspeakable. Got to be in the top five of all manmade non-nuclear blasts of all time.

Ranks #9 according to wiki:

Largest artificial non-nuclear explosions - Wikipedia

 

[Starman]

Interesting visualization of how widespread the damage was.

I'm on my iPhone so I can't really do the image embed, but if you google up "Hiroshima Bomb in New York City," you get blast pattern maps almost exactly identical to those.

Latest stories put the death count only at "over 100," and obviously they're expecting many more will be found in the rubble, but frankly it seems miraculous the figure wouldn't be in the tens of thousands.