https://www.foxnews.com/world/explosion-lebanon-capital-beirut
If this is an accident, this is one heck of an accident.
Quote from: Labbug on August 04, 2020, 04:10:56 PM
https://www.foxnews.com/world/explosion-lebanon-capital-beirut
If this is an accident, this is one heck of an accident.
Saw some reports saying something about "fireworks", but apparently Hezbollah unofficially controls the port, so I imagine the "fireworks" were military grade.
Apparently it was a fairly large stock of confiscated military grade explosives.
Video looks like a nuke went off, but there was clearly a fire and looking like small secondaries at a storage facility right before the detonation. There are a huge amount of nitrates being dispersed into the air.
They're saying accident but I don't if they can be entirely sure of that yet unless they 100% know the cause of the fire.
EDIT: Their PM is saying the conditions at the warehouse were known to be dangerous for a while. It's been a point of contention since 2014. And apparently not military grade, but a huge storage of explosive nitrates.
Holy smokes and to think we fly relatively close to that harbour when coming in for landing at the airport. :uglystupid2:
I don't want to see the effects of that explosion with its shockwave to low flying aircraft. :-[
Would've been bad I would imagine.
The area around the port looks flattened.
Images from the PM's house 1.6km away show the heavy wooden doors blown off and windows shattered.
Those clips are insane. I feel terrible for the people of Beirut and Lebanon in general...they have been through hell the last 40-50 years.
Holy crap, I bet there were quite a few people who needed a change of pants after that. :o
Quote from: Gusington on August 04, 2020, 05:26:10 PM
Those clips are insane. I feel terrible for the people of Beirut and Lebanon in general...they have been through hell the last 40-50 years.
Yep. I was reading a lot of comments from citizens and they're having serious flashbacks to their youth in the wars. A lot of extra layers of suffering as they've been trying to put that city back together for years now.
Sad to think that was once the jewel of the eastern Med. They've suffered enough.
Quote from: SirAndrewD on August 04, 2020, 04:35:49 PM
Apparently it was a fairly large stock of confiscated military grade explosives.
Video looks like a nuke went off, but there was clearly a fire and looking like small secondaries at a storage facility right before the detonation. There are a huge amount of nitrates being dispersed into the air.
They're saying accident but I don't if they can be entirely sure of that yet unless they 100% know the cause of the fire.
EDIT: Their PM is saying the conditions at the warehouse were known to be dangerous for a while. It's been a point of contention since 2014. And apparently not military grade, but a huge storage of explosive nitrates.
Halifax, Canada was flattened by a munitions ship explosion in 1917.
A Fertilizer ship explosion in Texas City in 1947 caused huge destruction.
Regretfully, this sort of thing has happened before.
Quote from: airboy on August 04, 2020, 08:56:06 PM
Halifax, Canada was flattened by a munitions ship explosion in 1917.
A Fertilizer ship explosion in Texas City in 1947 caused huge destruction.
Regretfully, this sort of thing has happened before.
I'm familiar. The age of social media and the ability to directly and immediately hear the thoughts, loss experiences and pain of the people involved surely makes it more real for people that haven't experienced it.
would like to see the fresh before/after satelite pics
this is a cruel kind of unwanted "simulation" what a 1kt or 2kt yield tactical nuke warhead (dialed to ground set off) would do to a 2020 civil harbor and its surroundings ???
i dunno how 2,75kt raw Ammonium nitrate relate to a given amount of TNT equivalent, but the shock front is slower, that's why its used for mining (you want to harvest rocks, not rocks blown to dust)
so it closer to a 1kt nuke then a 2kt
Quote from: MikeGER on August 05, 2020, 09:44:22 AM
would like to see the fresh before/after satelite pics
Mapping the Damage From the Beirut Explosion : https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/04/world/middleeast/beirut-explosion-damage.html
(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/fabdf9932a25b67c2213d456132d42f9f7745ab5/0_0_2560_1536/master/2560.jpg?width=1920&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=18ceb7f7b130de3bd6e276343779a220)
Thanks Pete :)
but i see only the before sat pic ... well, its a little to early for the after pic from civilian sources
Quote from: MikeGER on August 05, 2020, 09:59:32 AM
Thanks Pete :)
but i see only the before sat pic ... well, its a little to early for the after pic from civilian sources
updated my post
O0
That is an amazing picture showing the devastation. For the people within 200 meters of the blast zone I am assuming will never find any human remains. They were vaporized.
Regarding the Halifax explosion it lives on in memory in Boston every year. Boston sent a lot of aid to Halifax immediately after the explosion and every year since then Halifax has donated one of their prime pine trees to be the center piece Christmas tree on Boston common. Every year the story and the tradition as well as remembrance of why Boston receives a tree from Halifax is repeated on the news channels at the annual Christmas tree lighting - keeps the history alive for all the subsequent generations.
Con
There was recently an article on the Halifax explosion in Strategy & Tactics magazine. It was very interesting to read about how it happened and shocking to learn how devastating the blast was.
I think I remember there was at least one example of someone looking out their window near Halifax in 1918 who subsequently went blind when glass shattered from the explosion's impact.
Russian boat carrying ammonium nitrate had been docked in Beirut for seven years.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/russian-ship-storing-ammonium-nitrate-was-left-in-beirut-port-without-safety-precautions-repo
That would do it. :o #:-)
could have been a lot worse. that storage/silo building effectively shielded a large part of the local city and directed that blast mostly into the harbor.
Quote from: Gusington on August 05, 2020, 04:29:12 PM
I think I remember there was at least one example of someone looking out their window near Halifax in 1918 who subsequently went blind when glass shattered from the explosion's impact.
There is quite a bit of info on the Halifax explosion but a lot of interesting linkages
1. The method of mass ID'ng the bodies by the local coroner was developed when he was involved in ID'ng the victims from the Titanic
2. Approx 40+ people were permanently blinded - Afterwards Halifax became an internationally recognized center of excellence for treating blind injuries
3. A Boston Surgeon witnessing so many injured children requiring surgery took the skills learned there and developed standard care and surgery for Pediatrics
^There you go...terrible stuff.
NASA has made a map of the blast damage (https://www.foxnews.com/science/beirut-blast-damage-mapped-nasa-satellite-data).
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nasa.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Ffull_width%2Fpublic%2Fthumbnails%2Fimage%2Fpia23692-1041.jpg%3Fitok%3DZ6JZBhM8&hash=b9938e039b96d15fc69403bf7587cab0776105e3)
On the map, dark red pixels – like those present at and around the Port of Beirut – represent the most severe damage. Areas in orange are moderately damaged and areas in yellow are likely to have sustained somewhat less damage. Each colored pixel represents an area of 33 yards. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Earth Observatory of Singapore/ESA)
The FBI has been invited to join the investigation.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/beirut-blast-fbi-investigation-us
I've been out of internet coverage for a couple of weeks and caught up on all of my Wall St. Journals. WSJ had several follow up stories and this one is a farce ending in disaster.
A ship load of ammonium nitrate was ordered and shipped on an old Russian cargo vessel. Speculation was the stuff was to make truck bombs and IEDs in Iraq and other parts.
The ship pulls into Beirut and was found to be unsafe and had to pay fines and get fixed.
Then the ship got stuck in a bureaucratic maze between Russia and Lebanon. This went on for more than 5 years with multiple inspections stating that this ship was a floating bomb and the cargo had to be unloaded. More bureaucratic infighting would ensue after every report.
Then one day - boom! Ship is gone along with a big section of the port.