Terror Explosion rocks central Beirut

[Chazman]

that looks like a sizeable crater to me

Oh, yeah. It's obvious that that warehouse was the epicenter of the second, massive explosion. That burned out hulk onshore to the crater's left is a ship placed there by the explosion.

 

[muck]

At this point that would be way beyond the mere principle of incompetence.

Lebanon is, in effect, a failed state. That they've been able to maintain the semblance of a functioning government for so long is, frankly, quite the achievement. But I'm not surprised that in a desolate country overcrowded with refugees and struggling to battle SARS-2 no one felt responsible to supervise the contents of some bloody warehouse.

Note the capsized, due to the blast, ship on the right.

The vessel moored near the bottom left corner is the Bangladeshi corvette BNS Bijoy. UNIFIL reports that at least 19 blue helmets were injured in the explosion.

 

[Chazman]

Something just doesn't feel right. The official explanation is that the same warehouse, not only had 2700 tons AN but ALSO had a "fireworks factory" in the same building. Does that make sense? Something smells fishy.

 

[digrar]

I wonder if the silos managed to mitigate part of the blast though.

You can see in some of the aerial shots that the silos have done a pretty good job of deflecting the blast for that 90ish degrees.

And if you look closely, a lot of it seems to remain. Had the silo been what went off first and not the storage hall I suppose the grain would've been all but destroyed by the fire.

With a silo explosion, you're getting either the dust or the vapour from the grain fire to detonate in a confined space, it pops the silo and the grain spills out, fire fighters come in afterwards and put the fire out and you're left with a heap of ruined grain. In the pics you can see thousands of tonnes of grain that has flowed out of the damaged silos.

The same goes with ammonium nitrate, you can set a bag of AN on fire, the bag pops open, and half a chance that the spilling AN will put the fire out. There's just not enough heat or confinement to make anything happen. Now if the truck carrying the AN catches on fire and a heap of road fuel spills out of the trucks fuel tanks and the tarps securing the load go up, some of the AN dumping right into the road fuel spill you can get 48 tonnes of it go up and make a mess.

That truck was on fire for over an hour before the AN got to a point where it detonated.

I've heard but it can be just a rumour that someone was welding something in the hangar containing the chemicals to prevent theft. Flames and chemicals are a losing combination.

Every second catastrophic DG or Explosives facility event will come down to a hot work job gone wrong. We do extensive scheduled training to maintain currency as work permit authors to prevent it happening. Not something that happens at the Beirut Port facility I imagine.

Note the capsized, due to the blast, ship on the right.

You can see how well that silo has protected the area in it's shadow. They're bloody lucky it was there.

 

[Chazman]

Lebanon is, in effect, a failed state. That they've been able to maintain the semblance of a functioning government for so long is, frankly, quite the achievement. But I'm not surprised that in a desolate country overcrowded with refugees and struggling to battle SARS-2 no one felt responsible to supervise the contents of some bloody warehouse. The vessel moored near the bottom left corner is the Bangladeshi corvette BNS Bijoy. UNIFIL reports that at least 19 blue helmets were injured in the explosion.

Saved by the grain elevator.

 

[digrar]

Something just doesn't feel right. The official explanation is that the same warehouse, not only had 2700 tons AN but ALSO had a "fireworks factory" in the same building. Does that make sense? Something smells fishy.

If it was a magazine complex it would be fishy, but being a port, its not surprising at all. A S**t show of an operation too, to have that much of your port storage, tied up holding bulk AN for 6 years, it's ridiculous that it wasn't moved out of the area half a decade earlier.

 

[muck]

Something just doesn't feel right. The official explanation is that the same warehouse, not only had 2700 tons AN but ALSO had a "fireworks factory" in the same building. Does that make sense? Something smells fishy.

The building was used by the port authority to temporarily store goods seized in the harbour. I wouldn't expect a country without a functioning government to be able to maintain the standards of good industrial safety.

 

[TheKiwi]

Not to mention that most places (even poorly run ones) have a 'hazardous substance' storage zone. It doesn't seem particularly surprising to me that there would be multiple hazardous substances and products in one area.

 

[muck]

German daily Die Welt reports that people had been complaining about "foul stenches" present in the area around the silo terminal for "a considerable period of time".

Last year, Lebanese officials inspected the site and instructed the port authority to refurbish the storage hall. Due to recent events, the required construction work became delayed. The welder that caused the explosion was actually part of an effort to improve site security.

Oh, the better irony. On a related note, I retract my previous comment about the Lebanese government not giving a toss.

 

[Chazman]

Not to mention that most places (even poorly run ones) have a 'hazardous substance' storage zone. It doesn't seem particularly surprising to me that there would be multiple hazardous substances and products in one area.

I hear what you are saying, and on one level it makes sense to put all the dangerous stuff together. On another level it is completely preposterous. I mean, who would manufacture and store fireworks in the same building as thousands of tons of AN??

 

[Fish&Chips]

https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/world/radiation-levels-spike-10x-in-mediterranean-after-massive-beirut-blast

If the current map is actually from the day of the event, winds from Beirut would have dropped off any load somewhere between Croatia and Belarus, but not in Sicily.

 

[digrar]

I mean, who would manufacture and store fireworks in the same building as thousands of tons of AN??

No one who knows anything about DG and IE/HE safe handling and storage.

 

[Chazman]

Ran across this on Twitter.

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[muck]

If the current map is actually from the day of the event, winds from Beirut would have dropped off any load somewhere between Croatia and Belarus, but not in Sicily.

That map is obviously fake news. Even a small nuke detonated this close to the ground would've caused massive nuclear fallout (not to mention radiation sickness and radiation burns in those far away enough to survive). And let's not even address the other inconsistencies because what is the point, really.

 

[colin traveller]

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[Fluff]

Welders are dangerous people, first they burned down Bonhomme Richard and now blasted Beirut port.

And they wear masks!!!!

 

[riderboy]

 

[Fluff]

View attachment 243341

And it’s not over....

 

[IDF_TANKER]

I'm not sure it has been mentioned on this thread but Hariri murder verdict was supposed to be announced on August 7th. Much has been speculated about the possible consequences of this verdict - including the new civil war. This blast happening just two days before seems like one helluva coincidence...

Crisis-weary Lebanon braces for Hariri tribunal verdict

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Fifteen years after a truck bomb killed Lebanon’s former Sunni leader Rafik al-Hariri in Beirut, triggering regional upheaval, a U.N.-backed court trying four suspects from Shi’ite Hezbollah delivers a verdict on Friday that could shake the country again.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ces-for-hariri-tribunal-verdict-idUSKCN2500JU

 

[Ivan le Fou]

https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/world/radiation-levels-spike-10x-in-mediterranean-after-massive-beirut-blast

View attachment 243347

What radiations?
Produced by what?