Massive Blast in Lebanon

Checkmite said:
Hezbollah itself is already on record denying that it was an Israeli strike. I guess when both Israel and Hezbollah agree, there isn't much room left for speculation along those lines.
Click to expand...

I meant local as in "around these parts", as in "among CTist at the ISF who have already posted in this thread."
 
Dr. Keith said:
I meant local as in "around these parts", as in "among CTist at the ISF who have already posted in this thread."
Click to expand...

Oh, my mistake. In that case now that you mention it, it does seem odd. Maybe we just haven't waited long enough.
 
The numbers I've seen so far are 27 dead, 2,200 reporting injuries per the Red Crescent. Doubtless that number includes people injured by glass far from the explosion itself; there's no breakdown yet of the severity.
 
Checkmite said:
The numbers I've seen so far are 27 dead, 2,200 reporting injuries per the Red Crescent. Doubtless that number includes people injured by glass far from the explosion itself; there's no breakdown yet of the severity.
Click to expand...

There will be much adjustment to those numbers over the next few hours. Sadly, they will never decrease.
 
According to the 'General Security Chief':

General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim said: 'It appears that there is a warehouse containing material that was confiscated years ago, and it appears that it was highly explosive material.'
Click to expand...


Translated: **** me, Hezbollah has shot itself in the foot! But let's pretend it was sodium nitrate...stored next to a fireworks factory. Totally innocuous. Just a small flour bomb.
 
Steve said:
There will be much adjustment to those numbers over the next few hours. Sadly, they will never decrease.
Click to expand...

Yup - latest I saw was 70 dead, people being transported to other cities for treatment because Beiruit hopsitals are overwhelmed by the number of injured. I don't think it's an overstatment to call this catastrophic - that's almost MOAB-level destruction. My condolences to the victims, and their families and friends.

On the other hand, this Twitter account also shows some awesome parents as well as the devastation
 
Last edited:
Vixen said:
According to the 'General Security Chief':




Translated: **** me, Hezbollah has shot itself in the foot! But let's pretend it was sodium nitrate...stored next to a fireworks factory. Totally innocuous. Just a small flour bomb.
Click to expand...

The red smoke is indicative of a sodium nitrate explosion.

Nitrates are responsible for some of the largest non-nuclear explosions on the modern record, including for instance the AZF explosion in Toulouse, France in 2001 that killed 29 people and injured 2,500.
 
73 confirmed dead now, but I suspect that number is going to rise significantly.
 
Evidently, the Lebanon security minister's statement about masses of ammonium nitrate having been confiscated from a ship and stored at the port is corroborated by historical articles.

In 2014, a Russian-operated ship, m/v Rhosus, while destined elsewhere called at Beirut due presumably to mechanical issues. After an inspection by Lebanon's maritime authority the vessel was arrested there, and most of the crew deported. In the meantime the vessel's owner/operator abandoned it and the customer of interest in the cargo of ammonium nitrate likewise abandoned their interest. This led to a serious legal standoff in which Lebanon did not want to take possession of the vessel and its volatile cargo and so refused to let the remaining crew leave.

The crew eventually obtained legal representation which successfully convinced a Lebanese court to free the crew, and the ammonium nitrate was "discharged into the port's warehouses" - some 2,750 tons of it. Interestingly, their principal legal argument was the threat to the crews' lives as the nature of the cargo meant the crew was being forced to essentially sit atop an enormous bomb that could go off at any time.
 
Last edited:
Mike! said:
Holy smoke! That shock wave makes it look like a small nuke going off! Dang. :eye-poppi
The aftermath footage looks pretty devastating, but I don't know how close to the blast that was taken from.
Click to expand...
Two and a half thousand tonnes of AN will do that. There are less powerful nuclear options.
 
chrispy said:
Does anyone here know about proper sorage for such chemicals? Is there some of international standard?
Click to expand...
Oh yes, there have been standards for decades due to AN being both very common (it's the most used fertiliser) and somewhat prone to explode.
There are well defined requirements of fire prevention (it burns easily), ventilation (it forms nitrous oxide on decomposition), contact materials (no galvanised iron, copper, lead, or zinc), temperature (under 55 Celsius)/
Dumping fifty thousand sacks in a random warehouse for a few years and ignoring it is generally a bad idea.
There are dozens of examples of AN detonations, some larger than this one.
 
portlandatheist said:
This is exactly what I was wondering. Why was it being stored so close to a large population?
Click to expand...
I'd guess something along these lines.
"We need to put this stuff somewhere"
"Use that empty warehouse over there"
Followed by no-one taking responsibility. It happens.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom