Beirut explosion: footage shows massive blast shaking Lebanon's capital

[Shaka_Khan]

This happened today. I don't know why it happened yet:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93tV6-0Ugwk


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vVIf0HkqHU

[edyzmedieval]

The explosion blast is shocking - I've seen videos of it, the blast just spreads out throughout the whole area. Shocking.

[Csargo]

This is being reported as being caused by some nitrate that was seized from a ship a year(s) ago, and that was stored at the port in a warehouse. Don't know what caused the initial fires, but the reddish cloud after the massive explosion would support it being some sort of nitrate.

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1290698269421600770

[Hooahguy]

Im not sure if this picture (https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1290782284686266372?s=20) is 100% legit, but if it is then this tragedy makes sense. The condition that those containers were stored in would make it super easy for a fire to light them up.

[rory_20_uk]

Oh God that's a bigger explosion that Donald caused in the Middle East... he'll want to do another one that is bigly to be the winner.

~:smoking:

[Shaka_Khan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdCWolIi3OA

[Montmorency]

The videos taken from boats, you can see the shockwave traveling across the water. A hell of a thing.

Several thousand tons of ammonium nitrate detonated, officially so far.

We've seen this story in Tianjin, China, but at least that wasn't adjacent to the city center.

[Shaka_Khan]

Macron is in Beirut.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdnEhneTE4g


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niWA6BsMeH4

[Montmorency]

I saw several Beirut videos taken from car in which the shockwave knocked the rearview mirror loose from its socket. Why does that happen, when nothing else in the car - including windows - appears to be affected?

I have learned that, on preliminary information, the Beirut explosion should be rougly comparable to the 1947 explosion of 2100 metric tons of ammonium nitrate in Texas City (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Fertilizer_Company_explosion), one of the worst industrial accidents in American history. Of course there have been many similar incidents in American history, some just a few years ago, but few at the scale of thousands of tons of material. PEPCON might have been altogether more explosive, but it was in an unpopulated area.

Did they really store thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate within a hundred meters of the entire country's primary grain silo? Makes for an iconic centerpiece to all the apocalyptic photos at least.

https://i.imgur.com/p8Kebp5.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/GwyrMl2.jpg

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Monty:

I thought the same thing. Though it appears that they avoided having the grain storage turn it into a fuel-air explosion on top of the amfo disaster.

NOT good planning.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I saw several Beirut videos taken from car in which the shockwave knocked the rearview mirror loose from its socket. Why does that happen, when nothing else in the car - including windows - appears to be affected?


Shockwave strength drops according to inverse square law so it could be that the videos which made it to the internet were from observers a certain distance away that the pressure wave was enough to violently shake a vehicle but not destroy the windows. People in cars close enough to have the glass shatter and fly into the passengers are probably not in a state to browse tiktok. Keep in mind car windows (at least the windshield) are designed to hold up to wind forces of over 120 miles per hour, since people will be driving up to those speeds.