General / Off-Topic Beyrouth in Lebanon massive explosion!

It's called Newcastle, at Kooragang Island. Luckily I don't live anywhere near Newcastle but I do know people who do. It's very worrying.

Any fireworks factory nearby?

PS: actually... you don't even need fire to make it explode.
On the 21st of september 2001, the chemical factory AZF in Toulouse exploded after.... you guessed it... ammonium nitrate suddenly combusted. The explanation given was that vast amounts of chlorine were stored in the same silo as the AN. When both mixed, it started a chemical reaction that ignited the whole thing, and provoked the explosion.

Hopefully the people in Newcastle have more common sense, and learned from our mistakes.
 
Last edited:
When used for fertilizer the stuff gets mixed with calcium. This drastically reduces explosivity. At least that's what the dutch news told us.
 
Storing a halogene like chlorine next to a highly explosive substance is next level stupid. I guess that particular explosion got no attention due to 9/11 happening 10 days earlier.

That said, when properly stored ammonia nitrate isn't particularly dangerous. How worried you are should largely depend on the level of trust towards your government, local government and whoever runs the facility it's stored at.

In all honesty, judging from pictures like this I'm more surprised that it didn't blow up earlier during the six or seven years it was stored there.
.
Jsd_IzzE1Ptd1sFULmbgxZH_JZYL_229nnFYQCMzug8.jpg


Additionally it seems like the grain silo right next to it, redirected quite a big part of the shockwave too
ux22i4xcsef51.jpg


Nonetheless, the level of destruction, especially in the harbor is absolutely staggering. A shockwave strong enough to capsize a ship a km away is devastating.
 
Last edited:
Storing a halogene like chlorine next to a highly explosive substance is next level stupid. I guess that particular explosion got no attention due to 9/11 happening 10 days earlier.

That said, when properly stored ammonia nitrate isn't particularly dangerous. How worried you are should largely depend on the level of trust towards your government, local government and whoever runs the facility it's stored at.

In all honesty, judging from pictures like this I'm more surprised that it didn't blow up earlier during the six or seven years it was stored there.
.
Jsd_IzzE1Ptd1sFULmbgxZH_JZYL_229nnFYQCMzug8.jpg

Don't worry, this explosion seem to have woken up a lot of Lebanese. It might ignite a revolution, hopefully a peaceful one.

PS: You want something really scary? The AZF chemical plant lied just a few hundred meters from another chemical plant, that produced among others....

mustard gas.

By some miracle, that chemical plant was unscated by the explosion.
 
Last edited:
Nonetheless, the level of destruction, especially in the harbor is absolutely staggering. A shockwave strong enough to capsize a ship a km away is devastating.
To be honest it's abjectly horrifying. Thanks to mobile phones we saw it happen. I would hope to never see anything like it again.
Hopefully the people in Newcastle have more common sense, and learned from our mistakes.
I lived in Newcastle on and off some years back.

I always knew that there were chemical stores (as well as petroleum stores from memory!?!?!?) on Kooragang Island but it never really occurred to me....

Kooragang Island is just north of the city on the other side of the Hunter River.

It is also home to the coal loading port, one of the largest in the world. The small town of Stockton is just up the road.

Anything the size of the tragic events in Beirut, let alone larger:

Stockton would disappear.
The port of Newcastle would be obliterated.
The city of Newcastle would be devastated well through the CBD which is just on the other, south side, of the river as well as through the north suburbs.
The airport to the north of Stockton would be destroyed.

I didn't know this until yesterday but there have been community groups lobbying in Newcastle for decades to have that stockpile removed from being anywhere near the city.

Looking at Beirut it wonder if that is was a battlefield nuclear weapon impact would look like (and I never want to find out).

Us humans.... we need to be saved from ourselves.
 
Interpol announced Friday (August 7th) to send a team of international experts specializing in the identification of victims to the site of the two deadly explosions in Beirut, at the request of the Lebanese authorities.

🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 😷
 
Lebanese President Michel Aoun suspects missile or bomb, asks France for satellite images.
With all these on the ground footage from all possible angles I think the missile or bomb would be identified pretty quickly. Maybe he is trying to shift the government incompetence on handling the actual bomb that these stores were for six years...
 
He wants to make the buzz not to disappear in front of Macron. :)

🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 😷

When it comes to the heart of the Lebanese people....
Its already to late, he's all but gone!

president-Emmanuel-Macron-rencontre-jeunesse-libanaise-laquelle-promis-soutien_0_729_486.jpg


And yes I agree, he's not respecting social distancing! :mad:


PS: When you think about it, its really sad that some Lebanese end up stating that they would rater become a French Colony again, than to expect anything from their own government. :(
 
Last edited:
When it comes to the heart of the Lebanese people....
Its already to late, he's all but gone!

president-Emmanuel-Macron-rencontre-jeunesse-libanaise-laquelle-promis-soutien_0_729_486.jpg


And yes I agree, he's not respecting social distancing! :mad:

Yes and it’s known Macron loves media communication shots.

It's not really spontaneous but rather calculated

This guy doesn't really empathize for the people (French or other peoples).

🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 😷
 
PS: When you think about it, its really sad that some Lebanese end up stating that they would rater become a French Colony again, than to expect anything from their own government. :(
As some have said, the government paralysis is caused by the consensus between all the factions.

🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 🦠 😷
 
The double explosion caused a crater 43 meters deep, according to a Lebanese security source who quotes evaluations carried out by French pyrotechnics experts. :oops:

By way of comparison, the explosion in 1962 of an atomic bomb of 104 kilotons on the nuclear test site of "Sedan" in Nevada (western United States), had dug a crater nearly 100 meters deep .

🦠🦠🦠🦠🦠🦠🦠😷
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom