Huge Beirut explosion

Stratavarious

Horrible... destroyed a lot of the national grain stores too I read.

Toms_Dad

If you search for the Wikipedia page you will see that the biggest industrial accident in US history occurred in Galveston in 1947 caused by ammonium nitrate which caught fire on a French liberty ship. That involved 2250T of the stuff. It caught fire. Apparently when the ships captain tried to steam the hold to suffocate the fire it didn’t work because ammonium nitrate gives of its own oxygen. That’s why it is explosive of course! Bits of the ship were found 3 miles away. 

ThorpyFX

robgilmo said:

2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, for that to be turned into an explosive it needs to be fuelled, it literally needs to be mixed with fuel, and just the right amount of fuel or nothing will happen, then you need a detonator, the detonator has to be able to produce a detonation wave through the fuelled nitrate at 2-3 MPS, also, if this was household fertiliser it would be mixed with ammonium sulfate or urea which would not allow detonation to occur, 
The explosion in Germany in the 1920's needed dynamite as a detonator!

They are now saying that has been stored there since 2013, thats highly unlikely! ''where is my shipment of ammonium nitrate''?  ''dont know sir, we seem to have lost it'' ''what, 2750 tonnes of it''? Not like its going to be inconspicuous now is it?

That was no accident.

Rob this isn’t true. All explosives have something called a critical diameter. This is the Minimum diameter for the material that allows a detonation. 

An explosive as the general public knows it is anything from a Deflagration (typically subsonic) through time a detonation which is supersonic.

some explosive materials like Ammonium nitrate ( which is an oxidiser and usually requires diesel or another fuel in mixture ) typically won’t detonate unless they are kick started with another charge known as a booster. But...... the critical diameter is key and in the case of ammonium nitrate it can transition from burning to deflagration to detonation WITHOUT a booster of it is stored in large quantities above the critical diameter. the Halifax incident is an example of this

This looks to be an accident, these happen all over the world relatively regularly...

guitars4you

robgilmo said:

2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, for that to be turned into an explosive it needs to be fuelled, it literally needs to be mixed with fuel, and just the right amount of fuel or nothing will happen, then you need a detonator, the detonator has to be able to produce a detonation wave through the fuelled nitrate at 2-3 MPS, also, if this was household fertiliser it would be mixed with ammonium sulfate or urea which would not allow detonation to occur, 
The explosion in Germany in the 1920's needed dynamite as a detonator!

They are now saying that has been stored there since 2013, thats highly unlikely! ''where is my shipment of ammonium nitrate''?  ''dont know sir, we seem to have lost it'' ''what, 2750 tonnes of it''? Not like its going to be inconspicuous now is it?

That was no accident.

I think you are right - Yet Lebanon has many complex issues with various factions running, or wanting to run it - Yet a close neighbor was mighty pee'd off a day or two ago, when an attack on the Golan Heights was made by the Hezbollah - Yet other factions might well have their own agenda and as such various contenders in the blame game 

We will no doubt be sold a story that fits and suits - Who will be allowed to run the investigation - This in turn will have an impact and what we are told/sold

chillidoggy

WTF is ammonium nitrate? Never heard of it. Is it a liquid? Or can you shovel it like sand?

Stratavarious

chillidoggy said:

WTF is ammonium nitrate? Never heard of it. Is it a liquid? Or can you shovel it like sand?

Fertiliser... powder usually or granules to spread on fields.

This type of accident has happened a few times with equally devastating results.  It sounds like incompetence.

It can be used (and is) in improvised explosives which is why the conspiracy theorists will have a field day.

EricTheWeary

chillidoggy said:

WTF is ammonium nitrate? Never heard of it. Is it a liquid? Or can you shovel it like sand?

It's something you shouldn't store next to a fireworks factory. Storage of hazardous substances not an area I know much about but I think I could have guessed that much!

100 dead, 4000 injured. On the news this morning part of the problem is that the hospital was damaged. It's a country that imports most of it's food so there are concerns that as time passes there may be food shortages as the port has effectively been taken out.    

ESBlonde

chillidoggy said:

WTF is ammonium nitrate? Never heard of it. Is it a liquid? Or can you shovel it like sand?

In fertilizer form it's usually granular, it looks like your common or garden multipurpose fertilizer.

monquixote

ThorpyFX said:

So firstly it can be seen from the video that this started as a fire. There are intermittent flashes in the smoke as explosives “cook off” ie they are not detonating but deflagrating. The huge explosion (The red plume) is formed from some sort of nitrate explosive, I’d suggest it’s something like red fuming nitric acid..... which is a rocket fuel commonly used in soviet missiles. It could be ammonium nitrate but I don’t think it would be as scarlet as that...Anyway, that fuel doesn’t commonly detonate (albeit it is highly energetic)

 If it is stored in large quantities it can burn to detonation which is what we saw. The speed of the blast doesn’t look high enough for high explosives and as such the shattering effect of the explosive wasn’t as high, Thankfully.

It looks much worse than it is, and that’s partly due to the moisture laden air condensing as the blast wave forms. This density of air can do more damage and it looks vicious as it moves towards you, as can be seen in the video....

In all honesty though, this is a tragic occurrence that could have been prevented if the explosives were stored properly. 

I will say this, 100% this is Not fireworks. 

Wow, that is actually rocket science!

EricTheWeary

monquixote said:

ThorpyFX said:

So firstly it can be seen from the video that this started as a fire. There are intermittent flashes in the smoke as explosives “cook off” ie they are not detonating but deflagrating. The huge explosion (The red plume) is formed from some sort of nitrate explosive, I’d suggest it’s something like red fuming nitric acid..... which is a rocket fuel commonly used in soviet missiles. It could be ammonium nitrate but I don’t think it would be as scarlet as that...Anyway, that fuel doesn’t commonly detonate (albeit it is highly energetic)

 If it is stored in large quantities it can burn to detonation which is what we saw. The speed of the blast doesn’t look high enough for high explosives and as such the shattering effect of the explosive wasn’t as high, Thankfully.

It looks much worse than it is, and that’s partly due to the moisture laden air condensing as the blast wave forms. This density of air can do more damage and it looks vicious as it moves towards you, as can be seen in the video....

In all honesty though, this is a tragic occurrence that could have been prevented if the explosives were stored properly. 

I will say this, 100% this is Not fireworks. 

Wow, that is actually rocket science!

According to the news it is in part fireworks - they can be seen going off before the larger explosion. So either they triggered the nitrate or where triggered by whatever triggered it. 

ThorpyFX

EricTheWeary said:

monquixote said:

ThorpyFX said:

So firstly it can be seen from the video that this started as a fire. There are intermittent flashes in the smoke as explosives “cook off” ie they are not detonating but deflagrating. The huge explosion (The red plume) is formed from some sort of nitrate explosive, I’d suggest it’s something like red fuming nitric acid..... which is a rocket fuel commonly used in soviet missiles. It could be ammonium nitrate but I don’t think it would be as scarlet as that...Anyway, that fuel doesn’t commonly detonate (albeit it is highly energetic)

 If it is stored in large quantities it can burn to detonation which is what we saw. The speed of the blast doesn’t look high enough for high explosives and as such the shattering effect of the explosive wasn’t as high, Thankfully.

It looks much worse than it is, and that’s partly due to the moisture laden air condensing as the blast wave forms. This density of air can do more damage and it looks vicious as it moves towards you, as can be seen in the video....

In all honesty though, this is a tragic occurrence that could have been prevented if the explosives were stored properly. 

I will say this, 100% this is Not fireworks. 

Wow, that is actually rocket science!

According to the news it is in part fireworks - they can be seen going off before the larger explosion. So either they triggered the nitrate or where triggered by whatever triggered it. 

It will be the latter, the fireworks cannot trigger the AN.... this was a fire that caused the fireworks to pop off that then meant the Ammonium Nitrate or other nitrate fuel burnt to detonation. 

guitars4you

No 'fall out' can be good - But not really heard any comments in the news - So how lethal is that 'cloud and fall out'' plus for how long - See pics of 'locals' just walking around the debris, with no masks - Just a thought

merlin

No sense trying to convince @ThorpyFX. If there's ANYONE here who knows about explosives.... 

ThorpyFX

guitars4you said:

No 'fall out' can be good - But not really heard any comments in the news - So how lethal is that 'cloud and fall out'' plus for how long - See pics of 'locals' just walking around the debris, with no masks - Just a thought

unless the buildings were made out of hazardous stuff, the debris will be standard building materials. That Cloud is smoke from the fire, condensed air is from the blast wave.

The red plume is nitric acid.... thats less than ideal but looks to have been dispersed rapidly.

There is no "fallout" as that was a conventional blast, Fallout referee to radioactive material that comes after a nuclear detonation. It was a big explosion but still not as deadly as it would have been if it had been a High explosive. Ammonium Nitrate has a TNT equivalence of 0.42 so 42% as effective gram per gram of TNT.

merlin said:

No sense trying to convince @ThorpyFX. If there's ANYONE here who knows about explosives.... 

Ha, well i spent 17 years qualified as an explosive specialist working with all forms of explosives, My bachelors degree specialised in explosives chemistry and materials science. The Army's course to qualify as an Ammunition Technical Officer was 18 months long, i then worked in the field before completing two masters degrees, one in Explosives Ordnance Engineering and the other in Battlespace technology...... I know a little about this subject but its always good to learn more.

All I'm trying to do is provide an informed opinion based on my experience of seeing this stuff in the real world, the videos that have surfaced have all been really clear and yet consipiracies are abound already.

The video evidence shows that this was a fire that burnt to detonation. How the fire started is another question but the event itself and how it ended up is really clear.

crunchman

ThorpyFX said:

The video evidence shows that this was a fire that burnt to detonation. How the fire started is another question but the event itself and how it ended up is really clear.

That seems to be the question.  Did some nutter know it was stored there and deliberately start a fire, or was it an accident?

I'd lean towards an accident, but there is no way to be certain at this point.

guitars4you

ThorpyFX said:

guitars4you said:

No 'fall out' can be good - But not really heard any comments in the news - So how lethal is that 'cloud and fall out'' plus for how long - See pics of 'locals' just walking around the debris, with no masks - Just a thought

unless the buildings were made out of hazardous stuff, the debris will be standard building materials. That Cloud is smoke from the fire, condensed air is from the blast wave.

The red plume is nitric acid.... thats less than ideal but looks to have been dispersed rapidly.

There is no "fallout" as that was a conventional blast, Fallout referee to radioactive material that comes after a nuclear detonation. It was a big explosion but still not as deadly as it would have been if it had been a High explosive. Ammonium Nitrate has a TNT equivalence of 0.42 so 42% as effective gram per gram of TNT.

Thanks A - I didn't mean 'fallout' as in nuclear - I just used the word as I didn't know what else to say - But I meant the dust, smoke etc and if anything nasty in there

WiresDreamDisasters

ThorpyFX said:

yet consipiracies are abound already.

Coz people are idiots.

hurrrrr durrrrrrr it was no accident! Jews did it!

Fucktards.

digitalscream

crunchman said:

ThorpyFX said:

The video evidence shows that this was a fire that burnt to detonation. How the fire started is another question but the event itself and how it ended up is really clear.

That seems to be the question.  Did some nutter know it was stored there and deliberately start a fire, or was it an accident?

I'd lean towards an accident, but there is no way to be certain at this point.

If in doubt, assume incompetence. I mean...the fact that this stuff was even there is the perfect indicator of that - that much explosive material, stored in a densely-populated high-traffic area critical to the country's infrastructure...we're not dealing with genius-level planning here, but more likely a "Fuck it, that'll do, we'll worry about it later" approach.

Based on that, and the fact that every fire starts out (relatively) small...a small electrical fire could easily have got out of control and led to this.

Worse, evidence of a small fire started like that would likely have been destroyed in the blast, so there will be nothing to stop the conspiracy theories. The worrying part is that in an area as unstable as the Middle East, rumours like that can start actual wars.

earwighoney

ThorpyFX said:

All I'm trying to do is provide an informed opinion based on my experience of seeing this stuff in the real world, the videos that have surfaced have all been really clear and yet consipiracies are abound already.

The video evidence shows that this was a fire that burnt to detonation. How the fire started is another question but the event itself and how it ended up is really clear.

Thanks for your insights Major Thorpy, they are well appreciated as it seems to be a very odd situation which has lead to a terrible & sad disaster and it's great to have some technical insights to what might have lead to the disaster.

Conspiracy theories/Fake News etc are part of the world we inhabit, there's such a myriad of noise even often coming from souces that were once considered to be reliable at times it can be increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction.

WiresDreamDisasters

Major Thorpy is what I get when I look at the wife in the bath.