It's also not America. Safety is a culture thing (US, parts of Europe, maybe Japan, maybe Russia).

I mean, look at countries like China. They have all manner of nasty chemistry and manufacturing surrounded by dense areas of low income housing. I imagine there are other countries who also don't really care about safety of the general public.

Haven't read the entire thread, so SIAP.

I find the discussion on here fascinating. The comments on here in regard to the chemistry and physics are believable, since most posters went to A&M, a hard sciences university in Texas.

I can only imagine the screeching and uninformed opinions that would be spouted on a message board that catered to graduates of a place like Oberlin College.

Mr. AGSPRT04 said:

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Probably because he's not dead, just like everyone else shooting video that's been posted. Just because the pressure wave is enough to damage an adjacent building does not mean it does any harm to a human being.

As the shock wave expands, pressures decrease rapidly (with the cube of the distance) because of geometric divergence and the dissipation of energy in heating the air. The force exerted on a guy in the street 1/2 mile from ground zero (estimate of guy in video) is dramatically less than the firefighter standing a couple hundred feet away.

Running a 1.1kt nuke sim, you can see where the 20psi pressure wave diminishes. Outside of that ring, death is caused by flying debris and collapsing buildings in a conventional explosion. Buildings are subject to severe damage at much lower over pressure.

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Using Google Maps/Earth he's standing about 1/3 of a mile away, or just to the left of the M in MKHAYEL.
So while he was close enough to get rocked by the blast, he's not close enough for instant death.

That explosion must be close to a tactical nuke in tonnage.

chimpanzee said:

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It's hard to think that someone would store that much ammonium nitrate in an urban location, but then again, one or two greased palms in a place where people are accustomed to not asking too many questions of the wrong people and no one even knows.

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This is where my credulity of the overall situation gets strained.

You're going to tell me the local yocal authorities can tell the world exactly how many tons of this stuff was stored in very short order, yet they never took action to move it/store more appropriately? Or use it for legitimate industrial purposes (farming)?

Nah.

More likely it was used as a Hezbollah storage facility for bomb/explosives and someone got careless.

Look what happened in Texas City and in West.

bkag9824 said:

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chimpanzee said:

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It's hard to think that someone would store that much ammonium nitrate in an urban location, but then again, one or two greased palms in a place where people are accustomed to not asking too many questions of the wrong people and no one even knows.

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This is where my credulity of the overall situation gets strained.

You're going to tell me the local yocal authorities can tell the world exactly how many tons of this stuff was stored in very short order, yet they never took action to move it/store more appropriately? Or use it for legitimate industrial purposes (farming)?

Nah.

More likely it was used as a Hezbollah storage facility for bomb/explosives and someone got careless.

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Either outcome seems entirely plausible. There seems to be an overabundance of both malice and stupidity in the world.

If it were an arms depot blown up by the Israelis, the setup is brilliant. They would have to admit to stupidity to hide their malice.

In either case, you hate to see all those civilians living unwittingly around something that looks to have been equivalent to a small nuke.

yes, that's totally plausible to me

EyeBalz said:

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That explosion must be close to a tactical nuke in tonnage.

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Assuming it was 2750 tons of ammonium nitrate, and assuming all of it detonated, it would be 1.155 kilotons of TNT equivalent.

lunchbox said:

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Canyon, still think it was the silo that blew?

SirLurksALot said:

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bkag9824 said:

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chimpanzee said:

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It's hard to think that someone would store that much ammonium nitrate in an urban location, but then again, one or two greased palms in a place where people are accustomed to not asking too many questions of the wrong people and no one even knows.

---

This is where my credulity of the overall situation gets strained.

You're going to tell me the local yocal authorities can tell the world exactly how many tons of this stuff was stored in very short order, yet they never took action to move it/store more appropriately? Or use it for legitimate industrial purposes (farming)?

Nah.

More likely it was used as a Hezbollah storage facility for bomb/explosives and someone got careless.

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One should always consider Hanlon's Razor. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

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No doubt.

Just saying there is too much definitive information put out by the authorities that was quickly followed with "we're going to investigate who stored this so dangerously and hold them accountable". You don't know exact storage amounts without having prior knowledge of the goods being stored there and who was responsible for them.

• We knew who owned/stored the West and Texas City materials... it's not difficult to ascertain.
• That's a massive warehouse right on the water and a massive amount of explosive material for the authorities to not know critical information.
• Can you imagine using all of that storage capacity for multiple years without moving/changing out the inventory? Somebody's paying somebody to store it there.
• I guarantee you that in that part of the world, authorities keep a very, very close eye on explosives, especially in such large amounts. You think the Israeli's didn't know it was there?

The Lebanese government very well may have been complicit in the negligence. Just saying I don't buy the "we need to investigate to see who, how, what, when, why". They know exactly who owned/stored the stuff, and they've known since it showed up.

Just keep in mind how much influence Hezbollah exerts over the political landscape there. If this was a Hez storage facility, they just lost an incredible amount of good will from the local populace that may have been tacitly approving of them in prior years. This could be a significant setback for their operational flexibility/capabilities.

To reemphasize... I am not saying this was a deliberate attack. Most likely is simply attributed to the stupidity you referenced. But that stupidity is going to have profound effects on the Lebanese way of life and political sphere for a very long time. The Lebanese government is already in cover-up mode.

New photo.

Holy.Moly.

Just look at how everything - except the grain elevator - is absolutely leveled for a few hundred yards around that crater where the warehouse used to be.

74OA said:

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New photo.

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To my point about massive societal and political fallout.

From the link you provided:

"Perthes also warned that Lebanon's problems will have an impact on Europe, saying: "Economic, political and social crises do not tend to stay inside that country, but migrate, in a way, to Europe."

In the near future, the international affairs specialist expects that "protests against the government and the way Lebanon is governed will increase."

schmellba99 said:

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Holy.Moly.

Just look at how everything - except the grain elevator - is absolutely leveled for a few hundred yards around that crater where the warehouse used to be.

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It's hard to tell clearly, but it appears that the grain elevator sheltered a portion of the city from even more damage.

Roughly similar in size to the Texas City explosion if it was ammonium nitrate.

bkag9824 said:

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SirLurksALot said:

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bkag9824 said:

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chimpanzee said:

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It's hard to think that someone would store that much ammonium nitrate in an urban location, but then again, one or two greased palms in a place where people are accustomed to not asking too many questions of the wrong people and no one even knows.

---

This is where my credulity of the overall situation gets strained.

You're going to tell me the local yocal authorities can tell the world exactly how many tons of this stuff was stored in very short order, yet they never took action to move it/store more appropriately? Or use it for legitimate industrial purposes (farming)?

Nah.

More likely it was used as a Hezbollah storage facility for bomb/explosives and someone got careless.

---

One should always consider Hanlon's Razor. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

---

No doubt.

Just saying there is too much definitive information put out by the authorities that was quickly followed with "we're going to investigate who stored this so dangerously and hold them accountable". You don't know exact storage amounts without having prior knowledge of the goods being stored there and who was responsible for them.

• We knew who owned/stored the West and Texas City materials... it's not difficult to ascertain.
• That's a massive warehouse right on the water and a massive amount of explosive material for the authorities to not know critical information.
• Can you imagine using all of that storage capacity for multiple years without moving/changing out the inventory? Somebody's paying somebody to store it there.
• I guarantee you that in that part of the world, authorities keep a very, very close eye on explosives, especially in such large amounts. You think the Israeli's didn't know it was there?

The Lebanese government very well may have been complicit in the negligence. Just saying I don't buy the "we need to investigate to see who, how, what, when, why". They know exactly who owned/stored the stuff, and they've known since it showed up.

Just keep in mind how much influence Hezbollah exerts over the political landscape there. If this was a Hez storage facility, they just lost an incredible amount of good will from the local populace that may have been tacitly approving of them in prior years. This could be a significant setback for their operational flexibility/capabilities.

To reemphasize... I am not saying this was a deliberate attack. Most likely is simply attributed to the stupidity you referenced. But that stupidity is going to have profound effects on the Lebanese way of life and political sphere for a very long time. The Lebanese government is already in cover-up mode.

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You're making a lot of assumptions. It's absolutely plausible that they could have the amount and Would still need to investigate to find all those responsible. It's also plausible that government knows who is responsible, but wants to conduct a full investigation before all the information is released to the public. This is a regular occurrence with almost every government including our own.

While Hezbollah Is a member of the governing coalition, they are not the largest party. They are not even the largest Muslim party. None of the country's leadership positions are held by members of Hezbollah.

I think that both scenarios are plausible, but it's not reasonable to claim that one is "more likely" than the other at this point is. To do so is wishful thinking more than anything else.

74OA said:

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schmellba99 said:

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Holy.Moly.

Just look at how everything - except the grain elevator - is absolutely leveled for a few hundred yards around that crater where the warehouse used to be.

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It's hard to tell clearly, but it appears that the grain elevator sheltered a portion of the city from even more damage.

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it did or deflected the blast in the other direction

Capsized a ship across the port in that after photo above!

Lots of flying debris and glass casualties because of all the people watching the initial fire and explosion caught by the big one, or turned to see what it was to be hit by the shock wave.

Quote:

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Lower left of that photo, appears to be a ship sitting on the beach, where there used to be warehouses.

Blown there by the explosion?

I know the Israeli's often look for opportunities to accuse Hezbollah of malfeasance, but this presentation to UNSC is noteworthy:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-iran-smuggling-dual-use-items-for-hezbollah-weaponry-via-beirut-port/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-lebanon-iran-idUSKCN1UI2SJ


You are correct the Hezbollah is not the largest faction in Lebanon, but they hold incredible power.

An older article: https://www.cfr.org/interview/hezbollah-most-powerful-political-movement-lebanon

A more recent article detailing some of the unrest from the masses against all political parties. Note that the author mentions that Hez has a track record of largely staying above the corruption fray most commonly associated with the mainstream parties.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-10-30/as-lebanon-looks-to-form-a-new-government-all-eyes-turn-to-hezbollah

To deny the power Hez maintains across Lebanon is disingenuous.

Edit: Also note that I said "if" this was a Hez storage, not definitively claiming it is.

TexasAggie_02 said:

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lunchbox said:

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Canyon, still think it was the silo that blew?

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Regardless of what happened, thank God the grain elevator was in the position it was relative to the explosion. It served as a giant blast shield, and saved countless more dead and injured.

Aggie12B said:

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So, i've been reading up a little on the Beirut explosion. They are saying that 2700 TONS of ammonium nitrate were being stored at the port in Beirut. I don't know what caused the initial explosion, but 2700 TONS of ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) definitely would have made a big boom. I dug out my old Engineer's Bible (FM3-24) to check out some things. Doing the calculations: 2700 tons =5,400,000 Lbs of NH4NO3, multiplied by .42 (RE factor of NH4NO3) gives you Net Explosive Weight (NEW) equal to 2,268,000 blocks ( 1134 tons) of TNT being detonated assuming all 2700 tons of NH4NO3 detonated

For comparison purposes: The Texas City disaster on 16April 1947 was a result of 2200 TONS of NH4NO3 exploding, which by the calculation would have had a NEW equal to 1,848,000 blocks ( 924 tons) of TNT


All demo calculations are based off on TNT. All explosives have an RE factor (relative explosiveness Factor) in relation to TNT. NH4NO3 (ammonium nitrate) has an RE factor of 0.42. C4 has an RE of 1.34. NEW equals the total pounds of explosives expressed in TNT equivalent. the formula is: quantity x weight x RE factor = NEW


(Edited to correct the Math and to make sure the proper terminology was used.)

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Think it was metric tons in Beirut, but nice work!

This video appears to show the fire at the earliest stage I've seen -

It did NOT take long.

CanyonAg77 said:

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Wow. Knowing how well built an elevator is, that's terrifying.

This is even more terrifying, also from 74OA's link

Quote:

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Lebanon's main grain silo at the port was demolished in the explosion along with the wheat inside, leaving the beleaguered country with less than a month's reserves of the grain, the economy minister said.

(opinion: the light brown is wheat, the yellow is corn)

Raoul Nehme said that Lebanon needed reserves for at least three months to maintain food security. However, after the blast there are only enough reserves for "a bit less than a month" for a nation of more than six million people.

The explosion was the most powerful ever to rip through Beirut, leaving the harbor a wreck, disabling the main entry port for imports to feed the country.

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So now, we're looking at a humanitarian crisis, in mass starvation. Not only is the grain gone, the infrastructure for importing more is gone.

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Well here's an idea and I'm just spit ballin here but.....

Maybe don't store your critical food supply right next to 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate.

Sure hindsight is 20/20 but there are plans and there are dumb plans.

yikes

alright there's something fishy about the whole fireworks thing. i thought it was cooking off and they couldn't control it.

rally-cap said:

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This video appears to show the fire at the earliest stage I've seen -

It did NOT take long.

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The overpressure likely killed them instantly. God bless.

Seeing that water vaporize is insane -