Beirut explosion shatters windows across Lebanese capital

Hmmm, it's starting to sound like an Oklahoma City narrative developing. I'm no explosives expert, but it's hard to believe that ammonium nitrate could do that.

 

Wouldn't you have to have some sort of detonator? I mean, aside from the person in the next-door warehouse storing it full of firecrackers. What could possibly go wrong?

 

Lots of confirmation on the same story.

 

I'm not technical enough on explosives to understand all this. Sounds like the fireworks accident and fire in the next warehouse might have set it off???



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_nitrate_disasters

 

LSG

I am no expert, but as a kid I lived less than a mile from a fertilizer plant that produced AN. I do not recall any explosions or even fires, but it sure poisoned hell out of the nearby water wells.

Yes it is explosive, no doubt, but I think to get it all to go off takes some special preparations. It is not an efficient explosive material.

 

That Wiki article isn't complete. I was remembering some fertilizer plant explosion here recently.

2013....not an accident...

 

That stuff stored in a ware house for 6 years, at 80% humidity, crystalizes and gases out, into the warehouse. A fire next door and the gases become the detonator, KABUM.
We played around with the stuff in the military, ied.
Very efective.

 

The explosion at the West, TX fertilizer plant was caused by a fire in the building (whether set by an arson or by accident). No other detonators, apparently. They were storing 30-40 tons of ammonium nitrate at the time of the fire/explosion.

So.... a fire in the fireworks warehouse in Beirut could have caused the AN to explode.

 

You need a catalyst, what, I aint going to tell you, you have to find out yourself.
But when that stuff goes it is bad.
2700 tons of that stuff in a ware house for years is a time bomb, especially with high humidity ( port ). It could have been a light switch, or that fire next door.
What you see in the pics and videos is the port water, which gets caught up in the shock wave and than the red nitrate cloud.
The explanation is very plausible to me.
The Lebanon grain supply stored in the harbor got destroyed, too.
The harbor is a wreck and closed.

 

I don't really have a lot of "need to know" about catalysts and such, personally. lol

This guy is wondering what explosive would make the smoke plume so dark red (like iron). He doesn't think it's AN or firework gunpowder. He suggests there may have been some sort of underground storage bunker below the warehouse....but he's totally guessing (and didn't really end up with an answer).

 

Evidently caused by many tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in storage. I'm not certain but I think it's not explosive unless mixed just so with fuel oil. Maybe no accident?

 

Thanks for writing this. I learned something new today.

I also have a question. I'm assuming there has to be some kind of zoning laws in effect. Wouldn't something like that be stored farther away from other buildings?

 

I am not a chemist, but I know that the signature of a AM explosion is the redish smoke. If you have played around it, than you can identify it, because you find the red traces all over. I would have to sit down again and torture my brain again with the chemistry lessons, we had in the military. Honestly, I better have a nother bier.

Na I buy the story, 2700 tons stored for 6 years and a fire next door.

 

Wow that's a massive blast area, over 2000 injured. Also pity about the grain supply as they currently have food shortages in Lebanon

 

reddish smoke!!!! oh ***** I've seen it before in my backyard, potassium nitrate
https://www.tngun.com/homemade-smoke-bomb/

 

If anyone is interested in such chemistry, look up "Poor man's James Bond". But dont play with the stuff. Info only.

 

Lebanon is a disaster, there are no zoning laws. The AN fertilizer was taken of a ship and stored in a ware house in 2014 and stored in a ware house at the harbor. It was for auction, confiscation auction and nobody wanted it, same for the ship.
My bet they even did not know, or forgot that the crap was still there.

 

There are smoke bombs made to poison moles, it's basically black powder with an altered ratio of the 3 parts but evidently a toxin is included.

 

That's frightening. Thanks for responding.

 

Nukes are as hot as the interior of the sun, which makes them brighter than almost any pixel (or organic retina) can record without damage.

(Though we've come a long way since Ernie Kovacs burned out primitive CRT TV cameras by throwing flaring matches at them)

If memory serves didn't a "harmless" grain elevator blow up some decades ago? A small enough powder presents an enormous surface to the oxygen in the atmosphere for explosive combustion to result spontaneously

 

Some enterprising pyro used that to create "Creamora" mines. You basically take a coffee can, with no lip, poke a hole in the bottom for a fuse, add about 1 inch of large grain black powder (called lift powder in fireworks manufacture) place tissue paper on top of the powder and place a layer of coffee creamer (or maybe powdered milk or powdered sugar or corn starch?) The lift powder does two things, "lifts" and disperses your fuel and ignites it at the same time to create a spectacular fireball. I made a baby one in a vienna sausage can after the 4th of July with lift powder I pilfered from a mortar dud. It made a nice fireball about 6 ft wide.



How to Make Coffee Creamer Fireballs — Skylighter, Inc.
www.skylighter.com › blogs › cremora-fireball
Feb 14, 2018 - How to make a fireball in your back yard with coffee cremora and other flammable ... A friend of mine was able to purchase a couple of pallets of ...

 

I cant believe more deaths have not been reported. Wow.