The explosion in Beirut

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The explosion in Beirut

Post by AJMD429 »

I've never seen an explosion so huge...the one building just looks like it vaporized...!

https://youtu.be/-C_5O6G8yJc?t=3523

The skeptic in me wonders if someone didn't like what they were manufacturing there, but on the other hand, the Israelis would not likely do anything that would cause that much collateral damage.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

Post by wvfarrier »

Absolutely horrifying. The death told is bad enough but the economic fallout for Beirut will be even more catastrophic
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

Post by FWiedner »

.

Apparently, loading up a warehouse with ammonium nitrate is a bad idea.

:?
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

Post by Rusty »

I was thinking that there's something a little strange about just how many pictures there are of the event. It's almost like someone knew it was going to happen.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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Done
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

Post by DocRock »

So, according to Lebanese friends (the Phoenicians having invented conspiracy and the Lebanese refining it for millennia, I take this with much salt), the fire started in an adjacent warehouse containing, among other things, fireworks. That fire spread to the warehouse containing some 2,750 lbs of ammonium nitrate, most of which it seems has been confiscated as contraband @ 2016 and held since, improperly stored in a customs warehouse. It is widely believed that Hezbollah had the juice to keep the "fertilizer" held in the Port warehouse for eventual use in terrorism. Incompetence, corruption, and sectarian politics all make for a very credible story in Lebanon.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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Re: The explosion in Beirut

Post by Rockrat »

Explosion looked strange. First one with the dirty orange/brown cloud makes me think of nitrates going off then the shock wave seconds later like a high explosive went off instead of a low explosive. Would have thought the shock wave would have preceeded the first brownish cloud.

2,750 tons of the stuff sitting for 6 years with what looked to be a fireworks factory next door. Kind of like coming across a skunk in the woods and telling your friends "hold my beer, watch this". Stupidity has consequences often, sometimes you get away with it, sometimes you don't.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

Post by Grizz »

Breitbart has a story that a russian freighter was being unloaded at that wharf. The explosion was preceded by a fire at or on that dock, or in that area. It seems that this is what got the cell cameras trained on the site. Then the explosion. It looked to me like a fuel/air explosion, like the MOAB. something more volatile than just chemicals in drums. perhaps an rpg or something triggered it all?
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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It might have been instigated by some type of weapon. I doubt if we will ever know for certain. What is for certain is that the culture there left it WIDE OPEN for the event to occur. The people over there who have some authority consider things in the warehouses to belong to them personally. They are personally insulted when someone tells them that they are doing something wrong.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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JimT wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 11:13 amend.jpg
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

Post by RIHMFIRE »

I thought A.N. had to be mixed with something else to be volatile?
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

Post by gcs »

It does
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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RIHMFIRE wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 2:32 pm I thought A.N. had to be mixed with something else to be volatile?
Exactly... Nobody is talking about that....
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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While not used as an industrial explosive on its own, ammonium nitrate is unstable; at high temperatures it decomposes into nitrogen, oxygen and water vapor. Again, it is a relatively low-energy explosion, but dangerous when large amounts are involved. It is reckoned to be about 40% as powerful as TNT. According to the Lebanese Prime Minister, some 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate were stored in dockside warehouse in Beirut, having been confiscated, so the resulting blast might have been almost equivalent to a one-kiloton weapon.

(from https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambl ... 0088db10f4)

The article describes several similar explosions that have occurred with about the same about of ammonium nitrate. I was familiar with the one in Texas City, Texas that killed 400 people and wounded thousands. I was not familiar with the one in Oppau, Germany in 1921.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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Done
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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COSteve wrote: Thu Aug 06, 2020 11:36 pm I don't see the problem. Ragheads blowing up Ragheads. What's the issue?????
40% Of the people in Beirut were Christians.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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Over 500,000 children live there.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

Post by gamekeeper »

I remember years ago when Beirut was being torn apart by war, a UK shooting magazine posted a photo of a local with a rod fishing off that dock, I sure hope he survived it all....
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

Post by TraderVic »

According to the report, the 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate has been sitting there for 5-6 years.
So........really ??!! I can't stop scratching my head on this one. Everyone on this planet knows this stuff is explosive, unstable and quite volatile, and sitting in a dockside warehouse in that heat (???). How did that quantity sit there that long and not ignite before now ?
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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TraderVic wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 10:00 am According to the report, the 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate has been sitting there for 5-6 years.
So........really ??!! I can't stop scratching my head on this one. Everyone on this planet knows this stuff is explosive, unstable and quite volatile, and sitting in a dockside warehouse in that heat (???). How did that quantity sit there that long and not ignite before now ?
Because all by itself AN isn't going to go boom. It needs an accelerant and an ignition source.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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jeepnik wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 1:20 pm
TraderVic wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 10:00 am According to the report, the 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate has been sitting there for 5-6 years.
So........really ??!! I can't stop scratching my head on this one. Everyone on this planet knows this stuff is explosive, unstable and quite volatile, and sitting in a dockside warehouse in that heat (???). How did that quantity sit there that long and not ignite before now ?
Because all by itself AN isn't going to go boom. It needs an accelerant and an ignition source.
Seems like most news sources are dancing around the 8000 pound camel in the room.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

Post by JimT »

Blaine wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 2:15 pm
jeepnik wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 1:20 pm
TraderVic wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 10:00 am According to the report, the 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate has been sitting there for 5-6 years.
So........really ??!! I can't stop scratching my head on this one. Everyone on this planet knows this stuff is explosive, unstable and quite volatile, and sitting in a dockside warehouse in that heat (???). How did that quantity sit there that long and not ignite before now ?
Because all by itself AN isn't going to go boom. It needs an accelerant and an ignition source.
Seems like most news sources are dancing around the 8000 pound camel in the room.
If the initial fire was truly accidental, then there is nothing mysterious here. It does not need to be mixed with anything in order to explode. There have been other explosions just like this in the past.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

Post by TraderVic »

Yes, I'm aware the material needs ignition by one means or another.
Just like years past, many farmers blew stumps using a bag of ammonium nitrate and a stick of dynamite.
Conservation agencies used the same combination to create pothole wetlands around the US.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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This source seems accurate, and explains when it doesn't and when it does explode...No tap dancing in this articlehttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what ... in-beirut/
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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Blaine wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 5:38 pm This source seems accurate, and explains when it doesn't and when it does explode...No tap dancing in this articlehttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what ... in-beirut/
Good article Blaine. Thanks. Goes along with what I have read about it.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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A close friend's father was one of the original Navy Seals, and learned to blow up ships in WW2 - then in civilian life he got a job building interstates, and when they needed to cut into a hillside, they drilled holes, and packed them with kerosene and fertilizer, detonated in rows-at-a-time with blasting caps.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

Post by Mike Armstrong »

I'm used to using ammonium nitrate for blowing stumps, cracking rock faces, and moving boulders. It is a high explosive when mixed with a high-energy source like the kerosene mentioned. We used diesel oil and got forces equivalent to an equal amount of dynamite. That mix is very stable and requires a detonator such as a standard blasting cap.

I'm not sure that ammonium nitrate itself alone detonates, although an oxygen (in air) mixture with some of those decomposition components plus a spark might serve as a detonator. It also looks like the elevators shown blown open near the explosion site might have been used for storing grain, and grain dust explosions are well known and might have initiated the big, second blast or vice versa.

It's a little suspicious to me that the explosion occurred adjacent to the wealthiest minority Christian part of the city. But motives for mass murder abound in that city....

I still mourn the many USMC casualties of a truck bombing there in the late '50s. Never forget that.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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AJMD429 wrote: Fri Aug 07, 2020 8:06 pm A close friend's father was one of the original Navy Seals, and learned to blow up ships in WW2 - then in civilian life he got a job building interstates, and when they needed to cut into a hillside, they drilled holes, and packed them with kerosene and fertilizer, detonated in rows-at-a-time with blasting caps.
there is a similar process for imploding buildings, something to do with a "softer" ignition or some such to facilitate the progression of the charges.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

Post by piller »

Dust explosions are not too hard to replicate. Thermite is a combination that includes some metal powder. A small homemade thermite charge on that old and potentially decaying mass ot ammonium nitrate could have done it. Just a potential scenario. In a bad situation, enough humidity could have caused a chemical breakdown to start. It might have been a total accident. It might have had help. I really do not know.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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The original fire next to the warehouse with the AN, involved fireworks. It generated sufficient heat and energy to detonate the AN. That the Lebanese authorities stored fireworks next to a warehouse with 2700 tons of explosive fertilizer surprises me not one little bit.

It's quite sad. I have been to Beirut a number of times for work, for the Rally do Liban, and in holiday, but not since 2002. I was once traveling to Baalbek on the Beirut - Damascus highway with some Christian and Druze friends when we were stopped at a Hizbollah checkpoint and had to hand over passports. Everyone was nervous. Then I hear a lightly accented voice in English ask "Which one is the American?" . There's a preppy looking kid in a University of Michigan t-shirt holding my passport and an Ak-47. He asks, "So, where you from, dude? I'm from Houston but I'm here for the summer,like interning in my uncle's militia". I was somewhat stunned. I told him I lived in Dubai and he said something like "Cool. Have a good time but make sure you're out of the Beka'a before dark". And off we went...
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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Really good posts here, thank you gentlemen. My take-away? Probably just gross corruption, negligence and accident. The influence of Hezbollah? That deserves some attention. Agree probably never know. From Ukrainian Independant Information Agency. They are pretty good except when reporting about Kolomoisky who is very corrupt oligarch in Ukraine (Yes, I am 1st gen Ukrainian-American and Ukrainian patriot). -Tutt

The authorities in Beirut believe welding works at the seaport warehouse, where 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate was stored, are what caused a deadly blast that claimed dozens of lives and left thousands wounded. The cargo of ammonium nitrate arrived in Lebanon in September 2013, on board a Russian-owned cargo vessel flying a Moldovan Flag. The Rhosus, according to information from the ship-tracking site, Fleetmon, was heading from Georgia to Mozambique, Al Jazeera reports. It was forced to dock in Beirut after facing technical problems at sea, according to (PDF) lawyers representing the boat's crew. But Lebanese officials prevented the vessel from sailing, and eventually, it was abandoned by its owners and crew - information partially corroborated by Fleetmon. The ship's dangerous cargo was then offloaded and placed in Hangar 12 of Beirut port. Months later, on June 27, 2014, then-director of Lebanese Customs Shafik Merhi sent a letter addressed to an unnamed "Urgent Matters judge", asking for a solution to the cargo, according to documents shared online. FleetMon Customs officials sent at least five more letters over the next three years asking for guidance. They proposed three options: export the ammonium nitrate, hand it over to the Lebanese Army, or sell it to the privately-owned Lebanese Explosives Company. Nearly three years later, the ammonium nitrate was still in the hangar. Lebanon's Prime Minister Hassan Diab on Tuesday declared the explosion at the port a "great national disaster" and promised that "all those responsible for this catastrophe will pay the price". Lebanese President Michel Aoun called the failure to deal with the ammonium nitrate "unacceptable" and vowed the "harshest punishment" for those responsible. An investigation has now been launched, and the committee is to refer its findings to the judiciary within five days. The cause of the explosion is still not clear, but many Lebanese were quick to point out what they believe to be the root causes; immense mismanagement in a broken state run by a corrupt political class who they say treat the country's inhabitants with contempt. Explosion at the port near the center of Beirut killed dozens and sent shockwaves across the Lebanese capital, shattering windows in people's homes and knocking off balconies. Over 100,000 people are believed to be left homeless in devastating aftermath of the blast.

Read more on UNIAN: https://www.unian.info/world/huge-explo ... 01571.html
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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Done
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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Ragheads? Do we still use that term? Danny Thomas was Lebanese. Was he a raghead? Did he have no value? How about "That Girl" Marlo Thomas? Was she the merely the daughter of a raghead who spent his time building St. Jude Children's Hospital? What bout the Maronite Christian community in Lebanon? Guess they are ragheads too. If "not a sparrow can fall but God notices," I guess maybe every human life has value, and we should all mourn their tragedies, as does the Author of the Universe, and my Messiah, a raghead from the Lower Gallilee and adjacent to the Upper Gallilee inside the Lebanon.
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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Bill in Oregon wrote: Sun Aug 09, 2020 8:06 pm Ragheads? Do we still use that term?
I'm confused. What does that term have to do with someone's worth? I take your point that every human soul has worth in the eyes of our Creator. But I don't get how that terminology equates to worth. everyone is prejudiced, including the tribe that dislikes the term "raghead"..
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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Heart-rending BBC video on the blast and its aftermath.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53720383
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Re: The explosion in Beirut

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Done
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