Massive Explosion in Beirut.

[hellhamster]

IIRC Breivik used ammonium nitrate bomb in his 2011 attacks.

It's a decently entry level component of cheap bombs. Heck, you can even make bombs with kitchen supplies.

[Thekri]

IIRC Breivik used ammonium nitrate bomb in his 2011 attacks.

Well it is an ingredient, as it is one of the most easily accessible and cheap oxidizers. So a lot of terrorist attacks use it, but not in its raw form, like this was. Raw Ammonium Nitrate isn't much of an explosive, but several thousand tons of it certainly is enough to make a massive explosion. The vast majority of industrial explosives are also based on Ammonium Nitrate (Ampho), as was basically everything on the Mythbusters show. It is really cheap, really common, and really easy to make.

That doesn't actually have much to do with this explosion though, the yield of raw Ammonium nitrate is about 30% as much as Ampho, and it is much more difficult to explode. It is just that 2700 tonnes of anything is going to be massive if it detonates.

[Thekri]

Dude you should get a room with Ammonium Nitrate already.

Weird comment, I am not a huge fan of ammonium nitrate, I am just aware of what it is. I am also aware of what plastics are, that doesn't mean I like them.

The point is that we make about 200 million tons of the stuff a year. Having 2000+ tons of it in any given port city is pretty much guaranteed at any given time. I have no particular emotional connection to this fact, but it is a fact, and it is why having safety regulations, and following them, is extremely important. Because the "We should deregulate everything to promote business" crowd is an incredibly irresponsible position that leads to disasters on massive scales. The "We shouldn't be using this stuff in the first place" crowd is naive and out of touch, and doesn't really want to move out of their 3 Bedroom, 2 bath house in the Suburbs and work the all natural soil with a wooden plow.

We live in the modern world, and we can either be in denial about it, or we can adapt to it and make things safer. This (along with the dozens of previous examples of massive chemical explosions) should be used as an object lesson for why it is important to have and enforce vigorous safety regulations.

[Ghostpanther]

Because corruption.

More likely not the "sharpest tools in the shed".

[Gaidax]

More likely not the "sharpest tools in the shed".

Nah, more details float up - seems like the whole shipment was confiscated and had to be stored in the port thanks to directive from the local courts.

There was a whole back and forth between the port and the courts about this thing for 6 years that led to nothing, they had commissions and what not warning them this can wipe out the city - for example there seems to be info that inspectors again warned about this about half a year ago and nothing was done because there was some court deadlock or some such.

Basically this whole story went on for 6 years of bureaucracy. I'd imagine if someone would have "oiled" the process with $$, it would have been released/moved already, but there was none to do this, so it drowned in unnecessary bureaucracy, as all things are that are not paid for in back channels.

[ParanoiD84]

Still lower kill count then the Oklahoma City bombing where only 2.5 tons of Ammonium Nitrate where used compared to 2,750 tons in Beirut Port so could have been alot worse.

And yes casualties will continue to go up for a few days but still could have been much much worse death wise.

[Thekri]

Still lower kill count then the Oklahoma City bombing where only 2.5 tons of Ammonium Nitrate where used compared to 2,750 tons in Beirut Port so could have been alot worse.

And yes casualties will continue to go up for a few days but still could have been much much worse death wise.

Oklahoma city bombing wasn't Ammonium Nitrate. It was ANNM, which is a form of ANFO. Not really equivalent at all, ANFO is about 90% Ammonium Nitrate + 6-8% Fuel Oil, and it has an explosive yield of between 3-5 times as powerful as raw Ammonium Nitrate. ANNM is a particularly powerful version of ANFO that swaps the fuel oil for a more powerful fuel distilled from propane.

Also the Oklahoma city bombing was... well, a bombing. It was designed and placed specifically to kill people, it wasn't a random warehouse exploding accidentally from being on fire.

The main concern I have for future casualties on this one is the gasses that are the byproducts on the explosion, mixing with god knows what else on that pier, and killing additional people that are trying to rescue and contain the situation. A blast this size can produce tens of thousands of tons of carbon monoxide for instance, smothering people in low lying areas around the blast site. Toxic chemicals can also be created any number of ways when it interacts with something else, potentially including seawater.

The bulk of the injuries are going to be from flying glass shards, which is what is currently backing up hospitals, but the largest death tolls are frequently from post-blast gases.

[ParanoiD84]

Oklahoma city bombing wasn't Ammonium Nitrate. It was ANNM, which is a form of ANFO. Not really equivalent at all, ANFO is about 90% Ammonium Nitrate + 6-8% Fuel Oil, and it has an explosive yield of between 3-5 times as powerful as raw Ammonium Nitrate. ANNM is a particularly powerful version of ANFO that swaps the fuel oil for a more powerful fuel distilled from propane.

Alright remembered it as such but was a while since.

[Thekri]

Alright remembered it as such but was a while since.

Well to be fair, it ANNM is 90%+ Ammonium Nitrate by bulk, and media reporting on unfamiliar chemical composition is wildly misleading. McVey's bomb was often called a "Fertilizer Bomb" for this reason, but it objectively wasn't. While the main ingredient by bulk (Ammonium Nitrate) was the same as fertilizer, the explosive used was actually quite sophisticated.

The Fuel for ANNM is actually Nitrometha(something) I forget the exact name, but it is related to methane. At any rate, it is the exact same chemical that is called "Nitro" in stock car racing. It is a powerful fuel that is relatively low oxygen. What Ammonium Nitrate does is provide a huge amount of oxygen to that fuel, allowing it to burn hundreds of times faster and hotter then it can on its own. Obviously Nitro already burns well with just air for an oxidizer, so if you mix it with a chemical oxidizer like Ammonium Nitrate, you get a very powerful explosive.

So yes, a lot of media reporting around Oklahoma City focused on the Ammonium Nitrate, so you aren't really wrong, it was definitely reported that way. But it was a gross oversimplification of the actual explosive used, because the news anchors didn't want to teach a chemistry lesson (And explaining how to make a bomb on CNN is probably not a good idea).

It is a bit like calling a Doughnut "Flour". Yes, it is mostly flour, and yes, it shares most of its mass and chemical composition with everything from pizza to pancakes, but it is really quite different final product.

[wunksta]

Still lower kill count then the Oklahoma City bombing where only 2.5 tons of Ammonium Nitrate where used compared to 2,750 tons in Beirut Port so could have been alot worse.

It was in UK metric tonnes, so it's actually 3031.325 imperial/US tons, I think

[XDurionX]

Israel was among the first to offer aid and i doubt they had anything to do with it.

One of our politicians Carl Bilt got alot of shit on twitter for tweeting this lol
https://twitter.com/carlbildt/status...35149148180483

The only encouraging thing in this catastrophe in Lebanon is that even Israel has been quick in offering humanitarian aid.

Some responses

Hi Carl, this might seem like a shock to you, but Israel has long history of offering humanitarian aid to countries hostile to us, incl. Iran, Syria, Turkey. So, Lebanon is not a surprise. We do it simply because it's just the right thing to do.

Why are you surprised?
Israel defends itself from its enemies, while helping the civilian population wherever it can.

Let me refresh your memory:
2011 - Aid to Turkey
2013-2018 - Aid to Syria
2017 - offered help to Iran
2017 - offered help to Iraq

We will continue to do both.

“Even Israel”????
Israel has ALWAYS been one of the very first countries to help other countries after catastrophy strikes them. The IDF Search & Rescue Unit has been to dozens of countries alone in the last 10 years. I used to be an IDF Spokesman and saw it with my own eyes.

And many many more.

Good stuff i dont like the guy either.

I think you misunderstood me. I am absolutely convinced that Israel had nothing to do with it, but many people will think that because of Trumps implications. He's absolutely irresponsible. Publicly stating something like that is idiotic to begin with, but he'd better have a good reason for such accusations AT ALL.

[ParanoiD84]

Well to be fair, it ANNM is 90%+ Ammonium Nitrate by bulk, and media reporting on unfamiliar chemical composition is wildly misleading. McVey's bomb was often called a "Fertilizer Bomb" for this reason, but it objectively wasn't. While the main ingredient by bulk (Ammonium Nitrate) was the same as fertilizer, the explosive used was actually quite sophisticated.

The Fuel for ANNM is actually Nitrometha(something) I forget the exact name, but it is related to methane. At any rate, it is the exact same chemical that is called "Nitro" in stock car racing. It is a powerful fuel that is relatively low oxygen. What Ammonium Nitrate does is provide a huge amount of oxygen to that fuel, allowing it to burn hundreds of times faster and hotter then it can on its own. Obviously Nitro already burns well with just air for an oxidizer, so if you mix it with a chemical oxidizer like Ammonium Nitrate, you get a very powerful explosive.

So yes, a lot of media reporting around Oklahoma City focused on the Ammonium Nitrate, so you aren't really wrong, it was definitely reported that way. But it was a gross oversimplification of the actual explosive used, because the news anchors didn't want to teach a chemistry lesson (And explaining how to make a bomb on CNN is probably not a good idea).

It is a bit like calling a Doughnut "Flour". Yes, it is mostly flour, and yes, it shares most of its mass and chemical composition with everything from pizza to pancakes, but it is really quite different final product.

Yeah it's much more complicated then people understand for sure, i would know because im pretty cluless when it comes to chemistry and these things but it's interesting but you know your stuff

It was in UK metric tonnes, so it's actually 3031.325 imperial/US tons, I think

Ah yeah that sounds reasonable.

I think you misunderstood me. I am absolutely convinced that Israel had nothing to do with it, but many people will think that because of Trumps implications. He's absolutely irresponsible. Publicly stating something like that is idiotic to begin with, but he'd better have a good reason for such accusations AT ALL.

My bad yeah he's known for making irresponible tweets but it's good people call him out on it.

[Auxora]

2750 tons of ammonia nitrate stored in a warehouse there for 6 years was the cause, which exploded after a nearby fire. A horrible catastrophe caused by some extreme negligence.

Anyone who tinfoil hats their way to any other analysis is about bombs or conspiracy theories is wrong and wasting their time. Not hard to tell the source in this case. We know the exact warehouse which was full of huge bags of it, there was a fireworks fire nearby that spread to the warehouse, and that's exactly where the mega-crater is now. Not everything in the world that happens is a conspiracy.

[Puupi]

2750 tons of ammonia nitrate stored in a warehouse there for 6 years was the cause, which exploded after a nearby fire. A horrible catastrophe caused by some extreme negligence.

Anyone who tinfoil hats their way to any other analysis is about bombs or conspiracy theories is wrong and wasting their time. Not hard to tell the source in this case. We know the exact warehouse which was full of huge bags of it, there was a fireworks fire nearby that spread to the warehouse, and that's exactly where the mega-crater is now. Not everything in the world that happens is a conspiracy.

Nobody knows what set up the fire yet. You are even worse than the conspiracy theorists.

[Thekri]

Nobody knows what set up the fire yet. You are even worse than the conspiracy theorists.

How is that worse then conspiracy theorists? Everything he said is true. Yes, you could still speculate on what caused the initial fire, but such speculation is generally harmful and useless, so not doing so is the mature choice.

[Puupi]

How is that worse then conspiracy theorists? Everything he said is true. Yes, you could still speculate on what caused the initial fire, but such speculation is generally harmful and useless, so not doing so is the mature choice.

He is claiming as a fact that accidental firework fire was the cause for the explosion. The conspiracy theorists are just leaving a door open for speculation.

[Thekri]

He is claiming as a fact that accidental firework fire was the cause for the explosion. The conspiracy theorists are just leaving a door open for speculation.

Nowhere in his post did he state the fireworks fire was accidental. The cause of the fireworks fire is unknown. However it is clear that there was a fire with some small explosives in it (Presumably fireworks, since apparently they are stored there) and it is clear that fire spread to the warehouse full of Ammonium Nitrate, and is clear that is what resulted in the giant explosion.

He is only claiming as a fact the things that are established facts. You taking words that he did not say onto it does not make his post less true, only yours.

[Edge-]

He is claiming as a fact that accidental firework fire was the cause for the explosion. The conspiracy theorists are just leaving a door open for speculation.

Because that's what the evidence we have thus far suggests. There is no evidence to suggest there was an attack, and the only person I've seen make that claim is Trump (lol), and the White House has since walked it back.

Is it possible there was an intentional bomb/fire set up to trigger it? Sure.

Is there any evidence of this in the immediate aftermath? No.

Does all available evidence continue to point towards a spectacular and tragic accident due to extremely unsafe storage? Yep.

[Puupi]

Nowhere in his post did he state the fireworks fire was accidental.

Well if he would have thought it was deliberate, he'd have said it. He didn't, thus accidental.

The cause of the fireworks fire is unknown.

Exactly, hence everybody should just wait before rushing into any conclusions.

[Thekri]

Well if he would have thought it was deliberate, he'd have said it. He didn't, thus accidental.

... What? That is a complete non-sequitur. It makes just as much sense if you reverse it "He didn't say it was accidental, thus deliberate".

That is just insane troll logic, you don't get to fill in the answer if he doesn't comment on the subject.

Exactly, hence everybody should just wait before rushing into any conclusions.

Again, what? You are the only one trying to force some sort of arbitrary conclusion here. Everyone else is saying to stick to the established facts, and don't speculate on anything unknown.