Gigantic Explosion And Shockwave Rip Through Beirut's Port (Updated)

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Lebanon's Prime Minister Hassan Diab has now said that 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, which was confiscated six years ago and had been left in an unsecured warehouse ever since was responsible for the secondary explosion that has caused untold destruction. He has vowed to punish whoever is responsible for creating this situation, which was clearly a massive accident waiting to happen.
 
jontte said:
what's the difference between that fertilizer and anfo?
Click to expand...
ANFO is Ammonium Nitrate+Fuel Oil
Ammonium nitrate creates an excess of oxygen when it detonates, so adding fuel oil increases the yield by using that excess oxygen. Less free oxygen means less NOx gas is produced (the red smoke) My boss blew up a beaver dam with a 5 gallon bucket of ammonium nitrate soaked in diesel with a stick of dynamite as the detonator. He said he was 100 yards away behind a tree and logs were flying past his head. Scared him to death.

Fuel oil + 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate would have probably leveled half the city.
 
jontte said:
thought so,but to store that stuff like that,that's a JFC level of stupidity...
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It's actually very difficult to get pure ammonium nitrate to explode. If you piled it up and threw a match on it, the match would flame up a bit as the heat from the match decomposed some of the ammonium nitrate, and then it would probably just burn out. But if there is a big fire like there was at the docks, it can lead to conditions favorable for a detonation. Or if there is a detonator.
 
In the Oppau explosion in Germany, silos containing 4,500 tonnes of a mixture of 50% ammonium sulfate and 50% ammonium nitrate had gotten too humid and got compacted. To loosen up the fertilizer they used small charges of dynamite. Believe it or not, up until that time, that was standard practice and had been performed something like 20,000 times without incident. It was believed that less than 60% ammonium nitrate could not be detonated. But on Sept 21, 1921, it did detonate.
 
They are saying now the blast had a yield of 2.2 kilotons.

The W25 warhead, a tactical nuke, had a yield of 1.5 kilotons, so this blast was well into the range of tactical nukes.

The Little Boy bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of 15 kilotons.
 
Let me point at the elephant in the room.

Beirut. Lebanon. Muslims. Terrorists. Karma.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving group of wackos. They created their own 9-11. I have no problem with that. Maybe we can start a fund to send similar piles of chemicals to every major muslim city. It could be the world-wide version of 'muslim lives splatter'.

It's now been said. Let out the breath you're holding back. Not pretty, but it's how things are.
 
jontte said:
thought so,but to store that stuff like that,that's a JFC level of stupidity...
Click to expand...

Over here in the UK wew used to have an Amonium Nitrate plant on Teesside in the middle of the town owned by ICI, and there was often 10,000 tons on site less than a mile from houses.
 
TexasFreedom said:
Let me point at the elephant in the room.

Beirut. Lebanon. Muslims. Terrorists. Karma.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving group of wackos. They created their own 9-11. I have no problem with that. Maybe we can start a fund to send similar piles of chemicals to every major muslim city. It could be the world-wide version of 'muslim lives splatter'.

It's now been said. Let out the breath you're holding back. Not pretty, but it's how things are.
Click to expand...


Half of Lebanon is Christian, you are one really sick mo fo wishing that on innocent people. I hope Karma reaches you.
 
There have been many Americans who have lost loved ones from the evil actions of mooslims. How many thousand attacks have mooslims carried out? How many innocent people have they targeted and killed? Pain and hurt from losing a loved one is hard for me to judge...
 
Last edited:
Bill,

I looked it up, Lebanon is 54% muslim. About 40% Christian. I didn't know that many Christians live there. But, Lebanon is still a hotbed for terrorists. I still do not withdraw my comment regarding giving oodles of muslims their 72 virgins sooner than later. It is fine if we don't agree on that.
 
Texas, Beirut was known as the Paris of the Middle East before the Syrians turned it into a ********. There was a large Lebanese population in Jackson Mississippi where I grew up, and I had a friend in college from Beirut. They are good people, both the Christians and Muslims.

Beirut is divided into East Beirut which is Christian, and West Beirut which is Muslim. The port is in East Beirut.
 
Interesting story that happened in Beirut after the USMC barracks bombing . There's a Navy Seal that was stationed there and later went on to advise on movies like Navy Seals , Delta Force .
He and some CIA Guys were in a hotel looking out over Beirut and talking about the truck bomb used had a radio detonator and manual detonator . One CIA Guy was holding a device that He said would set off the radio detonator before it got to the target . This was in the 1980's .
As they stood at the window he was clicking the gadget . A multi story building across the city started collapsing the ground shook then the sound reached them .
One bomb factory gone .
 
Rellgar said:
Yes that's an attack of oppertunity.
Click to expand...
We know there was a:
Big fire
Warehouse full of ammonium nitrate.

A missile is superfluous, totally unnecessary.

Catastrophic ammonium nitrate disasters are a lot more common than you think.
No missile was needed for:
Gibbstown, New Jersey, USA January 14, 1916
Faversham, Kent, UK April 2, 1916
Oakdale, Pennsylvania, USA September 15, 1916
Kriewald, Germany July 26, 1921
Oppau, Germany September 21, 1921
Nixon, New Jersey, USA March 1, 1924
Muscle Shoals, Alabama, USA May 3, 1925
Miramas, France August 5, 1940
Tessenderlo, Belgium April 29, 1942
Texas City, Texas, USA April 16, 1947
Brest, France July 28, 1947
Red Sea January 23, 1953
Roseburg, Oregon, USA August 7, 1959
Traskwood, Arkansas December 17, 1960
Oulu, Finland January 9, 1963
Taroom, Queensland, Australia August 30, 1972
Kansas City, Missouri November 29, 1988
Porgera Gold Mine, Papua New Guinea August 2, 1994
Port Neal, Iowa, USA December 13, 1994
Xingping, Shaanxi, China January 6, 1998
Toulouse, France September 21, 2001
Cartagena, Murcia, Spain January 2003
Saint-Romain-en-Jarez, France October 2, 2003
Barracas, Spain March 9, 2004
Mihăileşti, Buzău, Romania May 24, 2004
Ryongchŏn, North Korea April 22, 2004
Monclova, Coahuila, Mexico September 9, 2007
West, Texas, USA April 17, 2013
Wyandra, Queensland, Australia September 5, 2014
Port of Tianjin, China August 12, 2015
 
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