Huge Beirut explosion

monquixote

ICBM said:

monquixote said:

In times like this I'm reminded of all the people moaning about things being: "ELF AND SAFETY GORN MAAAD!"

Much as it's annoying I'm glad it's there to prevent things like this.

And yet we had the Buncefield fuel store explosion in this country with modern Elf N Safedy regulations.

In that case there were two safety mechanisms in place which failed and people dumb enough to ignore procedures  when it happened.

It's a world away from just piling shit up in a warehouse and forgetting about it.

Tex Mexico

crunchman said:

digitalscream said:

ICBM said:

monquixote said:

In times like this I'm reminded of all the people moaning about things being: "ELF AND SAFETY GORN MAAAD!"

Much as it's annoying I'm glad it's there to prevent things like this.

And yet we had the Buncefield fuel store explosion in this country with modern Elf N Safedy regulations.

Regulations can't protect from brute stupidity all the time.

Health and Safety can breed the wrong kind of culture though.  15 or so years ago I was involved in some stuff at work with method statements and risk assessments for various jobs on the railway.  The guys who were going out on the job had a pile of paper an inch or more thick for some jobs, and it never got read.  It was all about protecting senior management's backside.  The guys at the bottom had to sign a piece of paper so management were covered.

To be fair, most of the time what that means is "making a project insurable", without which it wouldn't happen at all. I work in construction manufacturing and whereas it's true that apparently pointless hoops have to be jumped through, when you go to a site where there's been no H&S provision (yes, there are loads) you quickly see how dangerous things can get. There are very few corners tradesmen on price won't cut, and the first to go are the ones keeping others and themselves safe.

tony99

ThorpyFX said:

ICBM said:

ThorpyFX said:

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.

2,750 tons of it... so if it all went up (not sure if that's likely, you may be able to give an informed opinion), x .42 gives a TNT equivalent of 1,155 tons, or just over one kiloton.

That's one-thirteenth of the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima - although obviously there was far more intense heat radiation there as well as the high-energy nuclear radiation.

But even non-nuclear, it's a frighteningly big explosion and I'm not surprised the entire port area has been virtually obliterated. I think the death toll is very likely to be a considerable underestimate, sadly.

yup its huge, there is more to it though. Military explosives (of which TNT isn't anywhere close to the most powerful) have a "brissance" or shattering effect that belies their kg... AN isn't as shattering as mil spec explosives but it can be destructive nonetheless. from memory the manchester trafford centre bomb was ANFO (AN and Diesel) and that is called the £billion bomb because of the damage 1.5 tons did.

this will have destroyed so much property, even to the extent that buildings that look ok will have to be knocked down as structurally unsound.

Btw, Cyprus had an explosive disaster in 2011 that was near 3.2kilotns of military grade explosives....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelos_Florakis_Naval_Base_explosion

I think the manchester one was the arndale centre wasn't it? the one in the 90's?

ThorpyFX

tony99 said:

ThorpyFX said:

ICBM said:

ThorpyFX said:

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.

2,750 tons of it... so if it all went up (not sure if that's likely, you may be able to give an informed opinion), x .42 gives a TNT equivalent of 1,155 tons, or just over one kiloton.

That's one-thirteenth of the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima - although obviously there was far more intense heat radiation there as well as the high-energy nuclear radiation.

But even non-nuclear, it's a frighteningly big explosion and I'm not surprised the entire port area has been virtually obliterated. I think the death toll is very likely to be a considerable underestimate, sadly.

yup its huge, there is more to it though. Military explosives (of which TNT isn't anywhere close to the most powerful) have a "brissance" or shattering effect that belies their kg... AN isn't as shattering as mil spec explosives but it can be destructive nonetheless. from memory the manchester trafford centre bomb was ANFO (AN and Diesel) and that is called the £billion bomb because of the damage 1.5 tons did.

this will have destroyed so much property, even to the extent that buildings that look ok will have to be knocked down as structurally unsound.

Btw, Cyprus had an explosive disaster in 2011 that was near 3.2kilotns of military grade explosives....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelos_Florakis_Naval_Base_explosion

I think the manchester one was the arndale centre wasn't it? the one in the 90's?

Yes my error, arndale.....

tony99

ThorpyFX said:

tony99 said:

ThorpyFX said:

ICBM said:

ThorpyFX said:

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.

2,750 tons of it... so if it all went up (not sure if that's likely, you may be able to give an informed opinion), x .42 gives a TNT equivalent of 1,155 tons, or just over one kiloton.

That's one-thirteenth of the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima - although obviously there was far more intense heat radiation there as well as the high-energy nuclear radiation.

But even non-nuclear, it's a frighteningly big explosion and I'm not surprised the entire port area has been virtually obliterated. I think the death toll is very likely to be a considerable underestimate, sadly.

yup its huge, there is more to it though. Military explosives (of which TNT isn't anywhere close to the most powerful) have a "brissance" or shattering effect that belies their kg... AN isn't as shattering as mil spec explosives but it can be destructive nonetheless. from memory the manchester trafford centre bomb was ANFO (AN and Diesel) and that is called the £billion bomb because of the damage 1.5 tons did.

this will have destroyed so much property, even to the extent that buildings that look ok will have to be knocked down as structurally unsound.

Btw, Cyprus had an explosive disaster in 2011 that was near 3.2kilotns of military grade explosives....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelos_Florakis_Naval_Base_explosion

I think the manchester one was the arndale centre wasn't it? the one in the 90's?

Yes my error, arndale.....

no room for errors in this game mate you know that

monquixote

Tex Mexico said:

crunchman said:

digitalscream said:

ICBM said:

monquixote said:

In times like this I'm reminded of all the people moaning about things being: "ELF AND SAFETY GORN MAAAD!"

Much as it's annoying I'm glad it's there to prevent things like this.

And yet we had the Buncefield fuel store explosion in this country with modern Elf N Safedy regulations.

Regulations can't protect from brute stupidity all the time.

Health and Safety can breed the wrong kind of culture though.  15 or so years ago I was involved in some stuff at work with method statements and risk assessments for various jobs on the railway.  The guys who were going out on the job had a pile of paper an inch or more thick for some jobs, and it never got read.  It was all about protecting senior management's backside.  The guys at the bottom had to sign a piece of paper so management were covered.

To be fair, most of the time what that means is "making a project insurable", without which it wouldn't happen at all. I work in construction manufacturing and whereas it's true that apparently pointless hoops have to be jumped through, when you go to a site where there's been no H&S provision (yes, there are loads) you quickly see how dangerous things can get. There are very few corners tradesmen on price won't cut, and the first to go are the ones keeping others and themselves safe.

Yep, that's just people doing it wrong.

I haven't done a huge amount of safety stuff and it's years since I've been involved in managing that type of work but in the few years I was involved we had:

• Someone having their hand frozen off by undoing a valve on a pressurised gas fire suppression system
• Someone throwing scaff bars off a the top of a building into a truck over the heads of shoppers.
• Someone welding in shorts and t-shirt with a ladder at about 45 degrees over shoppers with sparks pouring down over them
• Someone who removed the raised flooring from under the carpet tiles, but left the carpet tiles in place creating a hidden man trap 

And that's on a site where people were very vigilant and followed process very well.

If you create a risk accessment and process that's so complex and full of jargon that no one understands it and then your people have an accident you are not covered at all. You might as well have not bothered as HSE will prosecute you just the same as if you hadn't bothered.

crunchman

It still goes on though.

I had to go into the office a couple of weeks ago (first time in months) and my manager insisted I wear a facemask - even though I had the whole place to myself.

monquixote

crunchman said:

It still goes on though.

I had to go into the office a couple of weeks ago (first time in months) and my manager insisted I wear a facemask - even though I had the whole place to myself.

Yes, it probably falls into the category of the worst system other than all the other ones that have been tried.

crunchman

monquixote said:

crunchman said:

It still goes on though.

I had to go into the office a couple of weeks ago (first time in months) and my manager insisted I wear a facemask - even though I had the whole place to myself.

Yes, it probably falls into the category of the worst system other than all the other ones that have been tried.

Sometimes the H&S people are totally inflexible though.  I'm pretty certain that the biggest cause of injuries on our railway is slips, trips and falls.  At the same time, they insist on great big clodhopping boots with protective toe caps whenever you are out on the railway - even when you are just inspecting something, with no other work going on.  They are making trips more likely.

monquixote

crunchman said:

monquixote said:

crunchman said:

It still goes on though.

I had to go into the office a couple of weeks ago (first time in months) and my manager insisted I wear a facemask - even though I had the whole place to myself.

Yes, it probably falls into the category of the worst system other than all the other ones that have been tried.

Sometimes the H&S people are totally inflexible though.  I'm pretty certain that the biggest cause of injuries on our railway is slips, trips and falls.  At the same time, they insist on great big clodhopping boots with protective toe caps whenever you are out on the railway - even when you are just inspecting something, with no other work going on.  They are making trips more likely.

When my mate was working on the Athens Olympics they were using jack hammers in flip flops.

Reverend

If you buy a thorpy pedal, don't  send him an arsey email and demand he sends you a replacement 
Immediately 

WiresDreamDisasters

tony99 said:

ThorpyFX said:

tony99 said:

ThorpyFX said:

ICBM said:

ThorpyFX said:

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.

2,750 tons of it... so if it all went up (not sure if that's likely, you may be able to give an informed opinion), x .42 gives a TNT equivalent of 1,155 tons, or just over one kiloton.

That's one-thirteenth of the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima - although obviously there was far more intense heat radiation there as well as the high-energy nuclear radiation.

But even non-nuclear, it's a frighteningly big explosion and I'm not surprised the entire port area has been virtually obliterated. I think the death toll is very likely to be a considerable underestimate, sadly.

yup its huge, there is more to it though. Military explosives (of which TNT isn't anywhere close to the most powerful) have a "brissance" or shattering effect that belies their kg... AN isn't as shattering as mil spec explosives but it can be destructive nonetheless. from memory the manchester trafford centre bomb was ANFO (AN and Diesel) and that is called the £billion bomb because of the damage 1.5 tons did.

this will have destroyed so much property, even to the extent that buildings that look ok will have to be knocked down as structurally unsound.

Btw, Cyprus had an explosive disaster in 2011 that was near 3.2kilotns of military grade explosives....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelos_Florakis_Naval_Base_explosion

I think the manchester one was the arndale centre wasn't it? the one in the 90's?

Yes my error, arndale.....

no room for errors in this game mate you know that

You're just mad it wasn't Anfield!

chillidoggy

RaymondLin said:

I bow to @ThorpyFX ;;

It's nice to get an expert opinion rather than lots of guessing.

Just as long as the rest of the Fretboard ‘experts’ are able to posit the usual crackpot theories. Only this morning a mate of mine was utterly convinced that Trump had ordered the dropping of a MOAB which caused the explosion.

Emp_Fab

I like explosives.  I think it would have been nice to have had a career in making things blow up.  I'm quite envious of you @ThorpyFX :-)

Kittyfrisk

crunchman said:

digitalscream said:

ICBM said:

monquixote said:

In times like this I'm reminded of all the people moaning about things being: "ELF AND SAFETY GORN MAAAD!"

Much as it's annoying I'm glad it's there to prevent things like this.

And yet we had the Buncefield fuel store explosion in this country with modern Elf N Safedy regulations.

Regulations can't protect from brute stupidity all the time.

Health and Safety can breed the wrong kind of culture though.  15 or so years ago I was involved in some stuff at work with method statements and risk assessments for various jobs on the railway.  The guys who were going out on the job had a pile of paper an inch or more thick for some jobs, and it never got read.  It was all about protecting senior management's backside.  The guys at the bottom had to sign a piece of paper so management were covered.

Funnily enough it isn't Health and Safety that breeds that kind of culture, but fear, which results in risk aversion taken to the Nth degree.
 Fear, driven by aggressive compensation claiming companies;  precarious employment situations at work, plus bad publicity and reputational damage to name but a few.
Plus (as you said) the fear of not having demonstrably done everything possible to cover your/the companies backside.

I cannot count the amount of times I have been given a stupid reason for some situation or behaviour justified as being 'its because of Health and Safety'  and I used to work in Health and Safety... 

ThorpyFX

Emp_Fab said:

I like explosives.  I think it would have been nice to have had a career in making things blow up.  I'm quite envious of you @ThorpyFX :-)

Twas a lot of fun... but if you can imagine how annoying normal risk assessments are to write..... try writing one for a range day. lol 

chillidoggy said:

RaymondLin said:

I bow to @ThorpyFX ;;

It's nice to get an expert opinion rather than lots of guessing.

Just as long as the rest of the Fretboard ‘experts’ are able to posit the usual crackpot theories. Only this morning a mate of mine was utterly convinced that Trump had ordered the dropping of a MOAB which caused the explosion.

MOAB is huge....but this was actually an order of magnitude more damaging than even the mighty MOAB which is 8.5 tons of HE vs  2500 tons of AN. Closest thing to this accident is Hiroshima at 13Kt or 5x this accident 

boogieman

monquixote said:

ICBM said:

monquixote said:

In times like this I'm reminded of all the people moaning about things being: "ELF AND SAFETY GORN MAAAD!"

Much as it's annoying I'm glad it's there to prevent things like this.

And yet we had the Buncefield fuel store explosion in this country with modern Elf N Safedy regulations.

In that case there were two safety mechanisms in place which failed and people dumb enough to ignore procedures  when it happened.

It's a world away from just piling shit up in a warehouse and forgetting about it.

I wonder who thought it was a good idea to license a firework factory right next to a storage facility full of a shitload of potentially explosive stuff too? ( if those are indeed fireworks igniting in the initial fire? Has that been confirmed? ) 

ICBM

I have to say that as soon as I saw the film of it on the news I was fairly certain it wasn't a terrorist bombing, despite the location and timing - it was just far too big even for the biggest truck bomb possible.

This satellite picture is pretty sobering...

EricTheWeary

boogieman said:

monquixote said:

ICBM said:

monquixote said:

In times like this I'm reminded of all the people moaning about things being: "ELF AND SAFETY GORN MAAAD!"

Much as it's annoying I'm glad it's there to prevent things like this.

And yet we had the Buncefield fuel store explosion in this country with modern Elf N Safedy regulations.

In that case there were two safety mechanisms in place which failed and people dumb enough to ignore procedures  when it happened.

It's a world away from just piling shit up in a warehouse and forgetting about it.

I wonder who thought it was a good idea to license a firework factory right next to a storage facility full of a shitload of potentially explosive stuff too? ( if those are indeed fireworks igniting in the initial fire? Has that been confirmed? ) 

Yes fireworks ( you can just about see them in the footage) I think that's confirmed although reading Thorpy's comments above they are probably coincidental - set off by whatever set off the nitrates. 

dano

ThorpyFX said:

tony99 said:

ThorpyFX said:

ICBM said:

ThorpyFX said:

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.

2,750 tons of it... so if it all went up (not sure if that's likely, you may be able to give an informed opinion), x .42 gives a TNT equivalent of 1,155 tons, or just over one kiloton.

That's one-thirteenth of the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima - although obviously there was far more intense heat radiation there as well as the high-energy nuclear radiation.

But even non-nuclear, it's a frighteningly big explosion and I'm not surprised the entire port area has been virtually obliterated. I think the death toll is very likely to be a considerable underestimate, sadly.

yup its huge, there is more to it though. Military explosives (of which TNT isn't anywhere close to the most powerful) have a "brissance" or shattering effect that belies their kg... AN isn't as shattering as mil spec explosives but it can be destructive nonetheless. from memory the manchester trafford centre bomb was ANFO (AN and Diesel) and that is called the £billion bomb because of the damage 1.5 tons did.

this will have destroyed so much property, even to the extent that buildings that look ok will have to be knocked down as structurally unsound.

Btw, Cyprus had an explosive disaster in 2011 that was near 3.2kilotns of military grade explosives....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelos_Florakis_Naval_Base_explosion

I think the manchester one was the arndale centre wasn't it? the one in the 90's?

Yes my error, arndale.....

I was in Manchester the day it went off, Saturday morning after the last day of term. I was at Owen's Park in Fallowfield (former Man Uni Students will know it well )  and we felt the shockwave there.  Amazing amount of power for the size, scary stuff.