Beirut Blasts

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2,750 Tonnes Of Ammonium Nitrate Exploded that was stored in a warehouse by beirut port for six years next to where a fire broke out before that hadn't been looked after to the point of neglect and the result is that almost nuclear blast like reaction.

70 killed thousands injured.. truly shocking i trust the owner of that warhouse is brought to justice for even storing that amount of nitrate.

Posts : 7473 Join date : 2014-03-30

I blame Israel raised eyebrow

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Les Miserable wrote:: I blame Israel

Usually it is or another group however i don't think they can be blamed for this which is probably a first just a poor unexpecting welder who caused a fire. Wont stop people blaming Israel and Hezbollah though.

Posts : 12371 Join date : 2017-09-09

I have been around tonnes of Ammonia Nitrate when I worked in a quarry years ago. It's used as an explosive and one of my jobs was mixing it with diesel then packing it in shot containers. One advantage of using anfo as its known is the fact it's very stable you can chuck the stuff around quite safely. I was told by the blaster that it will only go off with a high impact detonator he said maybe a twelve bore fired right in the top of one would probably do it but I'm pretty sure that it will just burn if set on fire and not explode. I wasn't aware that ammonia nitrate would explode without being mixed with diesel and without a detonator. Maybe it will explode if it's heated enough?
Feel very sorry for the people of Beirut.

Posts : 12371 Join date : 2017-09-09

Wiki,
The explosion results from a fire that spreads into the ammonium nitrate itself (Texas City, TX; Brest; West, TX; Tianjin; Beirut), or from a mixture of ammonium nitrate with a combustible material during the fire (Repauno, Cherokee, Nadadores). The fire must be confined at least to a degree for successful transition from a fire to an explosion (a phenomenon known as "deflagration-to-detonation transition"). Pure, compact AN is stable and very difficult to ignite, and numerous cases exist when even impure AN did not explode in a fire.

Been a lot of AN disasters over the years. Makes you wonder why they stored it in such a built up area?

Posts : 10224 Join date : 2011-10-23

Earwegoagain wrote:: Wiki,
The explosion results from a fire that spreads into the ammonium nitrate itself (Texas City, TX; Brest; West, TX; Tianjin; Beirut), or from a mixture of ammonium nitrate with a combustible material during the fire (Repauno, Cherokee, Nadadores). The fire must be confined at least to a degree for successful transition from a fire to an explosion (a phenomenon known as "deflagration-to-detonation transition"). Pure, compact AN is stable and very difficult to ignite, and numerous cases exist when even impure AN did not explode in a fire.

Been a lot of AN disasters over the years. Makes you wonder why they stored it in such a built up area?

Apparently it had been seized from a cargo ship in the docks 6 years ago and despite lots of paperwork going back and forth there had not yet been any authority given to move it.

Some of the video clips are unreal. People had windows blown out in their homes nearly 8 miles away, and the blast was felt 150 miles away....in Cyprus!

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i guess this is as close as we will get to seeing what the gunpowder plot would have looked like had that succeeded.

Posts : 13242 Join date : 2014-03-02 Age : 85

Angry wrote:: i guess this is as close as we will get to seeing what the gunpowder plot would have looked like had that succeeded.

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A few kegs of gunpowder couldn't do that much devastation.

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zyph wrote:

Angry wrote:: i guess this is as close as we will get to seeing what the gunpowder plot would have looked like had that succeeded.

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A few kegs of gunpowder couldn't do that much devastation.

36 kegs full of it would have and dont forget the landscape of london back then everything was closer together.