OT: Pray for Beirut and Lebanon
 

Initial reports are 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded, roughly equal to what leveled Texas City in 1947. Dozens dead so far, thousands injured, blast could be felt 100 miles away at a strength of roughly 3.3 on the Richter scale.

But longterm damage could be much worse, as Beirut is the central port to which all economic activity flows throughout the country. This could easily incite famine along with the medical and economic hardships of coronavirus.

Pray for Beirut and the Lebanese people.

https://twitter.com/Joyce_Karam/stat...423516162?s=20

Yes, some work contacts forwarded some info, i wish i could figure out how to upload video here. the amount of tangential destruction is incredible. not good.

It's sad, and hopefully they will learn for their mistakes.

Video and article.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53656220

The shockwave is absolutely insane!

Won't be long before the conspiracy theories (and warmongering) begin...

This is catastrophic. My thoughts and prayers for the people of Beruit.

The destructive force of the shockwave was horrifying. Really hope the casualties are not as high as that explosion looked...

Whoa.....for those who remember the OKC bombing: that was 7000lbs of ammonium nitrate.....which is roughly one tenth of one percent of the material that exploded today.

Incredible video. They said the airport had damage and it's 6 miles away. Very sad for the loss of life and injuries.

I do feel for them.

But who the hell stores over 50,000 lbs of ammonium nitrate next to a fireworks warehouse? I mean, what could go wrong?

video captured from various perspectives

https://youtu.be/eCSQXzGhVj0

I think it's the largest mushroom cloud explosion I've seen in my lifetime

My heart goes out to all who are in need over there

This.

The news reports 2750 Tons of Ammonium nitrate, that is 5.5 million pounds. That is insane, no wonder the magnitude of the explosion.

It's so much, how does such a huge quantity even explode all at the same time? I don't know anything about this sort of chemical reaction, but wow, that is amazing.

It doesn't, unless its compacted and charged. But if its smoldering in a low oxygen situation and suddenly something hits air...

But, honestly, there may be more to this story. Or not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_F...pany_explosion

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-...s-581-in-texas

One was an accident, one wasn't. Of course, there's Oklahoma City as well. So who knows.

+100


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Having worked during the the dog days of summer in farms during my high school days, I can tell you that fertilizer formulated NH4NO3 can form a hot amalgam and almost start liquefying. So if the conditions were hot and humid things can start melting together.

Inshallah

Shocking that this much ammonium nitrate had been stored there for about 6 years.

Jeff

thanks...first time seeing video footage of the aftermath. Gonna need a really big shopvac! Seriously, I read 4000 wounded going to hospitals...take that on top or corona and you know their hospitals are over-whelmed.

Already has...yesterday, w/o any evidence. Another distraction..

Knowing someone in the insurance biz who knows about covering this substance for shipment - it can be very unstable if not stored properly. That much of it being left sitting in a warehouse for that many years...not a surprising outcome.







W.

I wonder why this stuff was being saved for so long.

That's the million dollar question. However, with the state of Lebanon's government it's easy to see why such an oversight could be made. Ammonium nitrate is safe by itself, but can easily become deadly if not stored and protected properly. It looks like somehow someone missed that the huge stockpile should be protected at all costs from any kind of fire or other accelerant.

Good primer on the Lebanese crisis here (spookily published just hours before the blast):
https://www.theguardian.com/world/au...conomic-crisis

Aftermath of the blast site:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/world...rnd/index.html
https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/asse...-super-169.jpg

They kept saying the chemicals had been confiscated from a ship. Why they were left there so long who knows.

This explosion looks bigger than most of the videos of fertilizer explosions.

It is also bigger than the US explosion when we had a rocket fuel storage facillity go up in the 80s. Way way bigger.

There are videos of fireworks warehouses on fire.. the initial footage of the fire here doesn't really look like fireworks. Fireworks fires seem to really obviously look like fireworks going off + a giant fire and smoke.

Who knows what but I bet there was something else besides fireworks burning in the initial fire. Maybe just the chemicals themselves.

they said it was felt 150 miles away in Greece. I'm surprised that storage warehouse that anything is standing. Some amazing construction right there.

And today called an "attack" by... well, take a guess!

Those look like grain elevators....those are tough to take down

Maybe they prayed that nothing bad would happen and just figured it would be ok, kind of like when people pray for the victims of the explosion as if it’s going to help them somehow.

Bureaucracy, incompetence and corruption did it. It wasn´t an attack. There is no point in calling an attack when no one even comes up owning it.

Good grief.......

https://youtu.be/ROrpKx3aIjA

It happened at a Texas facility about a decade back. Killed half of the towns volunteer firefighters.

Yeah, I noticed that. If they are indeed grain elevators, that will be another hit to an already struggling population. Bread is a staple in that part of the world, often with long standing government subsidies, as in Egypt.

Just read that this stuff was on a ship from Georgia to Mozambique in 2013.
Due to an engine issue they docked in Beirut.
Apparently both, the Moldavian owner of the vessel and the seller of the cargo gave up on it.
In 2015 in order to get rid of the ship, the Lebanese authorities decided to unload it and store the ammonium nitrate in the same depot where is blew up 5 years later.
There was apparently a request every year to get rid of it by either sending it back to the original owner or to have it disposed by experts but it never happened.
Sounds like typical government bureaucracy got in the way...

It’s said that 85% of Lebanon’s grain stores were kept in that port area and are now destroyed.

They are already having serious economic issues, this certainly won't help :(

ESI took hi-res images of the area after the explosion. Just devastating.

it seems like Lebanon hasnt caught a break since the 50s. I will continue to keep them in my thoughts