Survivalist Forum banner

Massive explosion in Beirut

23K views 196 replies 57 participants last post by  SoJ_51 
#1 ·
Not sure if it had been posted yet or not but apparently a massive set of explosions went off in a port in Beirut. The port is basically gone... building had windows, doors, and balconies blown to pieces miles from the blast.

The initial blast was small.. the 2nd blast sent up a mushroom cloud and a massive pressure wave.

People on the ground reporting windows blown from buildings 10km from the site.

I'll post up more vids as I find them.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53656220

https://youtu.be/aLUQr7gdiLQ

https://youtu.be/93tV6-0Ugwk

 
#43 ·
On 4 August 2020, an explosion in a warehouse containing 2,700 tonnes (2,976 tons) of Ammonium Nitrate (NH4NO3) occurred at the Port of Beirut in Beirut, Lebanon. The explosion generated a shock-wave equivalent to approximately 1.29 kilotons of TNT[citation needed] that was felt more than 150 km away. At least 78 people were killed and more than 4,000 injured.


Apparently 1.3 kiloton explosion.


I would wonder if this wasn't set off though intentionally ie the two blasts, first was a planted or delivered explosive cap/warhead and the second was the warehouse blowing up.


Cause remains to be known.

Standard tactical nuclear warheads are 3x this powerful (the smallest nukes)


The MOAB conventional bomb is 10x as powerful as this blast..


So to answer what non nukes can do this... well this thing can do something 10x as powerful

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-43/B_MOAB#/media/File:MOABprototype.jpg
 
#48 ·
On 4 August 2020, an explosion in a warehouse containing 2,700 tonnes (2,976 tons) of Ammonium Nitrate (NH4NO3) occurred at the Port of Beirut in Beirut, Lebanon. The explosion generated a shock-wave equivalent to approximately 1.29 kilotons of TNT[citation needed] that was felt more than 150 km away. At least 78 people were killed and more than 4,000 injured.


Apparently 1.3 kiloton explosion.


I would wonder if this wasn't set off though intentionally ie the two blasts, first was a planted or delivered explosive cap/warhead and the second was the warehouse blowing up.


Cause remains to be known.

Standard tactical nuclear warheads are 3x this powerful (the smallest nukes)


The MOAB conventional bomb is 10x as powerful as this blast..
No, no no.

The MOAB is 11 tons of explosive force. If this Beirut blast is 1.3 Kilotons then it's as powerful as 118 MOABs.
 
#46 ·
Storing explosives or chemicals like that within the confines of a city is just criminal. I still suspect that this storage place belonged to Hezbollah and they deliberately picked that location amongst civilians expecting that it was safe from attack. The question is, did Israel know and blow it up or did some other actor....poor Lebanon is rapidly dissolving into a failed state, their economy is in shambles, corruption is worse than any south american country and Hezbollah calls the shots.
 
#47 ·
"William Ashley;20500290]On 4 August 2020, an explosion in a warehouse containing 2,700 tonnes (2,976 tons) of Ammonium Nitrate (NH4NO3) occurred at the Port of Beirut in Beirut, Lebanon. The explosion generated a shock-wave equivalent to approximately 1.29 kilotons of TNT[citation needed] that was felt more than 150 km away. At least 78 people were killed and more than 4,000 injured.

Cause remains to be known.

Standard tactical nuclear warheads are 3x this powerful (the smallest nukes)

The MOAB conventional bomb is 10x as powerful as this blast..

So to answer what non nukes can do this... well this thing can do something 10x as powerful"

The US did have very small nuclear warheads.
The W48 was 6.1 inches (155 mm) in diameter and 33.3 inches (850 mm) long. It was built in two models, Mod 0 and Mod 1, which are reported to have weighed 118 pounds (54 kg) and 128 pounds (58 kg) respectively. It had an explosive yield equivalent to 72 tons of TNT (0.072 kiloton), which is very small for a nuclear weapon.[2][3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W48

The USGS did record an event equal to 3.3 on the Richter scale.
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthqu...lyShown=true&baseLayer=satellite&timeZone=utc
 
#52 ·


The Prime Minister is talking like this was a bomb, not an accident, although not definitively.

I personally don't think this was ammonium nitrate, unless it was intentionally sabotaged. and it appears to issue forth from a single containment instantly with a very crisp shock wave.

I guess they will need to investigate to know for sure.

Trump also calling it an attack.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/510571-trump-calls-beirut-explosion-an-attack

Edit: Likely not an attack, but indications are that a large cache of military high explosives were stored there.
Ammonium Nitrate of course would contribute in some way to the energy released.
 
#60 ·
Hezbollah is a terrorist organization front for Iran and is a major force in Lebanon. They fire rockets into Israel and cross the border to set bombs.

Several possibilities in this scenario:

A bomb making accident in an explosives warehouse.
Mossad taking care of a danger to Israel.
An industrial accident.

And we will probably never know the truth.

In the early 1970s Beirut was a beautiful, prosperous city; The Paris of the Middle East. Then the various groups started fighting each other and destroyed the city and the country. It is now about the bottom of the S***hole places around the world with no sign of a way out.
 
#61 ·
In the early 1970s Beirut was a beautiful, prosperous city; The Paris of the Middle East. Then the various groups started fighting each other and destroyed the city and the country. It is now about the bottom of the S***hole places around the world with no sign of a way out.
What a shame!
 
#71 ·
Starting to think about the convenience of all those cell phone cameras were pointed at that spot at that particular moment.



Even one on a small craft in the harbor
The cameras were trained on the billowing smoke from the big fire preceding the explosion. I don't think anyone expected the huge explosion that followed.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk
 
#69 ·
if that was only 1.3 KT,

Imagine the Messine explosion in WW1,

That was 1 million pounds of total explosive.

Also...I'm getting better at guessing yields. I was up at my folks house these evening watching the news and when I saw that footage I told them that looked like at least a 1kt blast.
 
#75 ·
With an initial report of 2700 tons of AN being stored there for years I am sure it was slightly less from years of pilfering for explosives manufacture.

As reported it would be over 7000 barrels (55gal) of material. It would have to have been kept dry and sealed not in sacks or an open pile in order not to absorb moisture and become a giant icepac and remain potent.

AN is the basic building block for many types of explosives and thermal devices from legally purchasable tannerite to ANFO which became famous thanks to Timmy. It is currently used in mining, quarry, landscape demotions etc. Acids, metals, and carbon based mixes change it chemically to explosive compounds.

Ash and smoke particles are carbon based and make these chemical binary equations work. This is what is thought to have happened in 47 in Texas city, a fire in the ship changed the chemistry of the ammonia nitrate on the cargo vessel.

Ammonia Nitrate was manufactured during WW2 as an explosive component. After the war ended all of the companies involved didnt want to lose money on the infrastructure created for the war effort. So they just changed the signs out front from weapons factory to fertilizer company, and the money kept rolling.

So I truly believe that many tons of material were carted off over the years to be placed in IEDs and rockets. With little to no paper work required.
 
#76 ·
That's most likely the case. Especially given the part of the world it's in... However, there appears to have been quite a stash left over... as would be expected with having so much of it there to start. I think that may also lend some credence to my tinfoil hat theory seeing as how every tom, ****, and haji in the neighborhood probably knew about the stash...
 
#83 ·
Not sure how much the ammonium nitrate participated in the blast, but maybe it contributed. For sure it would burn like hell.


Set off by "Confiscated high explosives".

"Major General Abbas Ibrahim, of Lebanon's General Security Directorate, said the massive blast that shook Beirut's port area on Tuesday was caused by confiscated “high explosive materials.”

It would be "naive to describe such an explosion as due to fireworks," Ibrahim told Lebanese TV."

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live...s-dle-intl/h_e6713bdae252e2feee83a4e3263c09ac


https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/lebanon-beirut-explosion-live-updates-dle-intl/index.html

"Robert Baer, a former CIA operative with extensive experience in the Middle East, said videos of Tuesday's blast showed that while ammonium nitrate may have been present in the warehouse, he does not believe it was responsible for the massive explosion that ensued.

Initial reports blamed the blast on a major fire at a warehouse for firecrackers near the port, according to Lebanese state news agency NNA.

Lebanon's Prime Minister, Hassan Diab, later said that 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive material used in fertilizers and bombs, had been stored for six years at a port warehouse without safety measures, "endangering the safety of citizens," according to a statement.

Baer said he thinks that there were military munitions and propellants present. He speculated it could have been a weapons cache, but it's unclear who it belongs to."

"It was clearly a military explosive," he said. "It was not fertilizer like ammonium nitrate. I'm quite sure of that."
"You look at that orange ball (of fire),
and it's clearly, like I said, a military explosive."

Baer noted that white powder seen in the videos of the incident before the major blast are likely an indicator that ammonium nitrate was present and burning. He also noticed a lot of munitions going off ahead of the larger explosion.

No evidence of an attack: Baer said while he believes the explosion does not look like solely ammonium nitrate, there's still no evidence that this was an attack. The government has blamed poor management and vowed to get to the bottom of it.

"It almost looks like an accident," he said. "It was incompetence, and maybe it was corruption, but the question is whether it was military explosives, who was it going to or why was it stored there?"


So far, France, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait have started sending field hospitals and doctors to Lebanon to help with the recovery.
The US has also offered to help.

"EU officials will urgently deploy "over 100 highly trained firefighters, with vehicles, dogs and equipment, specialised in search and rescue in urban contexts," EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič said in a statement from published Wednesday.

The Netherlands, Greece and the Czech Republic will participate in the scheme and France, Poland and Germany have also offered to assist Lebanon."
 
#85 ·
Not sure how much the ammonium nitrate participated in the blast, but maybe it contributed. For sure it would burn like hell.


Set off my "Confiscated high explosives".

"Major General Abbas Ibrahim, of Lebanon's General Security Directorate, said the massive blast that shook Beirut's port area on Tuesday was caused by confiscated “high explosive materials.”

It would be "naive to describe such an explosion as due to fireworks," Ibrahim told Lebanese TV."

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live...s-dle-intl/h_e6713bdae252e2feee83a4e3263c09ac


https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/lebanon-beirut-explosion-live-updates-dle-intl/index.html

"Robert Baer, a former CIA operative with extensive experience in the Middle East, said videos of Tuesday's blast showed that while ammonium nitrate may have been present in the warehouse, he does not believe it was responsible for the massive explosion that ensued.

Initial reports blamed the blast on a major fire at a warehouse for firecrackers near the port, according to Lebanese state news agency NNA.

Lebanon's Prime Minister, Hassan Diab, later said that 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive material used in fertilizers and bombs, had been stored for six years at a port warehouse without safety measures, "endangering the safety of citizens," according to a statement.

Baer said he thinks that there were military munitions and propellants present. He speculated it could have been a weapons cache, but it's unclear who it belongs to."

"It was clearly a military explosive," he said. "It was not fertilizer like ammonium nitrate. I'm quite sure of that."
"You look at that orange ball (of fire),
and it's clearly, like I said, a military explosive."

Baer noted that white powder seen in the videos of the incident before the major blast are likely an indicator that ammonium nitrate was present and burning. He also noticed a lot of munitions going off ahead of the larger explosion.

No evidence of an attack: Baer said while he believes the explosion does not look like solely ammonium nitrate, there's still no evidence that this was an attack. The government has blamed poor management and vowed to get to the bottom of it.

"It almost looks like an accident," he said. "It was incompetence, and maybe it was corruption, but the question is whether it was military explosives, who was it going to or why was it stored there?"


So far, France, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait have started sending field hospitals and doctors to Lebanon to help with the recovery.
The US has also offered to help.

"EU officials will urgently deploy "over 100 highly trained firefighters, with vehicles, dogs and equipment, specialised in search and rescue in urban contexts," EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič said in a statement from published Wednesday.

The Netherlands, Greece and the Czech Republic will participate in the scheme and France, Poland and Germany have also offered to assist Lebanon."

If you look up some of the blast effects tests the military has done, they have created those blasts with... ammonium nitrate. If you freeze the video I shared earlier at the point where the fireball is visible, it looks almost identical to this test: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_Scale
 
#94 ·
From CAMEO (this is one of the tools I have stickied at that top of the NBC subforum)...

Capable of detonation or explosive decomposition or explosive reaction but requires a strong initiating source or must be heated under confinement before initiation.
https://cameochemicals.noaa.gov/chemical/98

Heated under confinement... like a fire in a warehouse where you have enormous bulk bags of it stacked on top of each other?
 
#96 ·
From CAMEO (this is one of the tools I have stickied at that top of the NBC subforum)...



https://cameochemicals.noaa.gov/chemical/98

Heated under confinement... like a fire in a warehouse where you have enormous bulk bags of it stacked on top of each other?
Yes,not arguing it can't work as an explosive. It does, and is very commercially important as such.

But it takes time to heat 1000 tons of beads (prills). And those beads likely contain another 1000 tons of water that it has absorbed from the air.
 
#98 ·
I have more experience with the liquid side NH3 ...see avitar

It is a water magnet and unless caught in an expansion flow it has a pretty solid vapor wall for a gas. It will turn an eyeball into a raisin and find sweat glands in a class B and make you not want to be there. it Its listed as a flammable but alone and off gassing it is stable and not ignitable.

We would shrink dollar bills by placing them in the liquid and then letting them off gas, there is about a 60% reduction in size. Made aqueous ammonia for home gardening projects. NH3 as well has many binary alternate uses from benign to very not so
 
#102 ·
I wonder how fast the blast wave travels vs the speed of sound. I was watching a giant chimney taken down on tv while about a mile away. It took about 5 seconds for the actual sound to reach me, watching on live tv the chimney hadn't even collapsed fully.
 
#105 ·
Your post is confusing. Are you saying that you were sitting 5 sound seconds from the blast? at 1100 ft / sec that would mean you were 5500 feet from the blast?

Or the chimney was 1 mile from the blast? or both?

Was the TV really live or contain a delay for the censors? or via satellite which has another delay?
 
#113 ·
Per Andrea Sella, professor of chemistry at University College London:

If you have a large amount of material lying around for a long time it begins to decay.

"The real problem is that over time it will absorb little bits of moisture and it eventually turns into an enormous rock," he says. This makes it more dangerous because if a fire reaches it, the chemical reaction will be much more intense.

Per Professor Ian Rae, Honorary Professorial Fellow, School of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Melbourne

When heated to above 170 degrees Fahrenheit, ammonium nitrate begins to undergo decomposition. But with rapid heating or detonation, a chemical reaction can occur that converts ammonium nitrate to nitrogen and oxygen gas and water vapor. The products of the reaction are harmless -- they're found in our atmosphere -- but the process releases huge amounts of energy.

"The idea in making any sort of explosive is to go from a high energy compound to a low energy one," explains Ian Rae, a professor at the University of Melbourne. "The energy given out is what you get as explosive power."

The "explosion" in Beruit was really a chemical reaction... the radid conversion of ammonium nitrate to nitrogen and oxygen gas and water vapor.
 
#106 ·
Well we know something caught on fire and something blew up. And released a lot of energy in the process. Past Ammonium Nitrate explosions did similar damage and it was known to be there, so there's that. Whether the trigger was fire, fireworks, or weapons storage/manufacturing, the blast looks a lot like ammonium nitrate.

The Jordanian Seismological Observatory recorded, on Tuesday, the explosion that occurred in Beirut Port with a seismic capacity equivalent to 4.5 on the Richter scale.

This was stated, according to a statement by the head of the observatory, Mahmoud al-Qaryouti, which was reported by the Al-mamlaka TV on its website.

He explained that “Jordanian earthquake monitoring stations recorded the explosion at 06:08 pm; and that the explosion is equivalent to an earthquake measuring 4.5 degrees on the Richter scale.”
https://en.alghadeer.tv/archives/23780
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top