OT: Beirut Ammonium Nitrate Explosion
Former NBA reporter Chris Palmer said this was the result of a nuclear bomb because it had a mushroom cloud, lol.
August 5th, 2020 at 11:47 PM ^
What a jackass. Perhaps he doesn't know how nuclear blasts work.
How any blast works? I would guess most people don't realize know how a nuclear explosion works
I haven’t seen it reported anywhere but the US had a similar size ammonium nitrate accident in Texas City in 1947. It was the single greatest explosion outside of nuclear bombs ever to happen here. 600 people died in that accident.
Holy hell. Had not seen any videos yet. So what was going on with the smoke that people were filming before the actual explosion?!
But wow. So sad. That is a helluva'n explosion and mushroom cloud. Notttttt a great stockpile site for that type of uh, materials. Unbelievable it's been there that long even after warnings (over numerous years I think?) to move it from such a densely populated area (okay not really populated per se but in a large port).
Some middle eastern national news sites are pointing to this material being a Hezbollah stockpile..sounds like speculation at this moment.
August 6th, 2020 at 12:32 AM ^
It was bureaucratic incompetence of allowing almost 3000 tons of ammonium nitrate to sit in a warehouse and be forgotten about for years.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/world/middleeast/beirut-explosion-ship.html
Thats something I would forget about, and thats why i do my civil duty by not being a politician....
I know it's easy to beat up on government bureaucracy, especially in Lebanon where the government has legit issues, but this is also a problem of corporate negligance. Of an irresponsible Russian buisnessman transporting all that explosive material in an unsafe way, in an unsafe boat, not planning, and then when it got expensive, just abandoning it and the entire crew in a foreign country with no money or help, essentially dumping the problem on the Lebanese government. There's a lot of blame to go around when something this terrible happens.
August 6th, 2020 at 10:37 AM ^
*rolls eyes*
This is 100% on the government. That stuff was there for six years, customs officials wrote at least six times to the Lebanese courts to do something about it, and nothing happened until boom.
August 6th, 2020 at 10:58 AM ^
Any civil trial lawyer would tell you that this kind of gross negligence almost is never 100% someone's fault alone.
According to your name, you're a teacher, so let's look at this from a different direction --
When bad things happen in your school (big bad things, not kid didn't do their homework), how often is it one kid's fault? How often is there a teacher got distracted, a janitor left a door unlocked, a crazy schedule that left kids unsupervised, and two kids who are ok alone but together create chaos that all comes together to leave huge messes?
Nothing, especially at scale, is one entity's fault 100%. You should know better. When you teach your classes, I hope you do better. A warehouse full of "we know it's dangerous, but we don't know what to do with it and don't want to pay to deal with it" is a bright glowing 'pass the buck' sign to any bureaucracy.
August 6th, 2020 at 11:42 AM ^
Tyrion Lannister found this to be a huge advantage.
This Twitter post was linked by an Ars Technica user (Ars had a good article). You can hear what souinds like fireworks going off before the explosion. Really bad storage situation all around.
Yeah, apparently a cache of fireworks were stored next to a big load of ammonium nitrate. What could go wrong? The fireworks caught fire first, then exploded, and you can see hear the fireworks going off after that. Then it spread to the ammonium nitrate and holy hell what an explosion!
August 6th, 2020 at 10:05 AM ^
Given the civil-military environment in Lebanon, a dollar says those "fireworks" were not on their way to an independence day party.
Michigan is home to about 10% of the country’s Lebanese-Americans. I’m sure there are plenty with family members affected by this.
Terrible tragedy. Unbelievable destruction. Thoughts for the Lebanese people. Apparently, the explosion could be heard more than 100 miles away and caused damage 15 miles out. Epicenter is completely destroyed.
August 5th, 2020 at 11:27 PM ^
Yea I read people on Cyprus (~150mi out?) heard this explosion.
Better send in OSHA.
August 5th, 2020 at 10:03 PM ^
MIOSHA fined me for walking past an electrical outlet at a jobsite that didn’t have a face plate on it. Apparently we were supposed to stop in our tracks until someone put the face plate on or just go the fuck home.
August 5th, 2020 at 10:08 PM ^
The amount of ammonium nitrate in this explosion was 2750 tons...the Oklahoma City bombing (same chemical) was around 2.5 tons. That is insane.
August 5th, 2020 at 10:11 PM ^
My bet is that it was rocket fuel...the first explosion was taking out the war heads, the 2nd larget was the fuel. The blast was straight up. If that was ammonia (make that ammonium) nitrate, the blast would have been more damaging, believe it or not. This was a well executed attack and I would guess it was done by the Saudis. The weapons were Iranian being housed by Hezbollah. This coincides with all of the suspicious fires at various Iranian nuclear facilities and other places where Iran is trying to build or store their weapons of war.
Notice the reddish brown smoke. That's from rocket fuel burning and exploding just like you see below. But you guys go ahead and believe what a government controlled by terrorist believe you.
August 5th, 2020 at 10:22 PM ^
Seems more like an alien warhead to me based on the shape of the crater. Probably just to distract us from the landing craft.
August 6th, 2020 at 12:57 AM ^
Please keep your pants on, Earthling. We have reached the limit of what anal probing can teach us.
But do you think there's a chance you might start doing it again?
Asking for a friend.
August 5th, 2020 at 10:25 PM ^
That's a lot of conjecture with no sources or evidence.
August 5th, 2020 at 11:22 PM ^
Do I think he’s right? No.
Do I think it’s odd that there have been multiple massive fires/explosions in Iran (suspected enrichment site, weapons site, medical clinic, marketplace) since late July? Kinda ... yea.
I think it could also be Israel, not the Saudis. It could also be bad infrastructure and poor oversight from years of crippling sanctions. Could also be shit luck
Hasn't Israel all but admitted they're the ones who have been screwing with Iran?
I could believe someone opportunistic took the chance to sabotage a very poorly run warehouse in a country already hanging on by a thread
August 5th, 2020 at 10:26 PM ^
Propaganda Central...right here on MGOBLOG.
August 5th, 2020 at 10:34 PM ^
I sleep better knowing we've got CIA on mgoblog giving us the secret scoop first.
August 5th, 2020 at 10:30 PM ^
“ammonia nitrate”
August 5th, 2020 at 11:22 PM ^
Is this what Alex told you? It wasn't Q, anyway - no mention of pedophilia stored at the bomb site...
You need to refold your tinfoil hat, dipstick.
August 5th, 2020 at 11:53 PM ^
It's remarkable how many people immediately dive into conspiracy theories regardless of the issue.
If you freeze the video you can clearly see a Q in the clouds. This aligns perfectly with all of my other theories
August 6th, 2020 at 10:53 AM ^
I highly question anything coming out of certain areas of the world. This is acceptable to do and should be done.
There's a big difference, though, between 1) maintaining a healthy agnosticism, and 2) latching onto a very specific theory of events in the absence of any real evidence and with a lot of extremely speculative, lay reasoning passed off as expertise.
https://twitter.com/quantian1/status/1290695231910875136
CHEMISTRY FACT: Explosives have characteristic "detonation velocities" at which shockwaves expand. Smartphone video records at 30 FPS, so the adjacent frames here suggest the front expands at ~100 m/(1/30 sec), or 3,000 m/sec. Consistent with ammonium nitrate, not black powder.
SCIENCE!!!!
Please stop using logic and Science, it always ruins a great conspiracy theory!
August 6th, 2020 at 11:50 AM ^
Okay, but you have to recalculate for flat earth physics if you want to know the REAL truth.
I don't think it was rocket fuel. That shot came from the Death Star.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
Great, because I accidentally clicked on one of those videos my Youtube algorithm is going to be showing my crackpot conspiracy theory suggestions for months.
Seriously, it astounds me that people assume a country that is struggling to keep the lights on for swaths of their population couldn't possibly have less-than-ideal handling of very explosive, unstable materials.
August 5th, 2020 at 10:47 PM ^
We're gonna need some more FBI guys, I guess.
August 5th, 2020 at 10:56 PM ^
Lemme ask the folks I play Counterstrike with if they know
August 5th, 2020 at 11:50 PM ^
Send Jamie Foxx and his crew from the movie The Kingdom.
Except for Jennifer Garner, whose role was to gasp and look away while Jamie Foxx stared grimly ahead.
August 5th, 2020 at 10:52 PM ^
With that blast radius, I am amazed that the death toll isn't higher than what's being reported. In most of the videos, it looks like people are going about their business - no evacuation (or at least not a large enough one). Other videos show the street-level aftermath and the area is devastated.