Massive explosion in Beiruit today

[ScottDLS]

Here I was, thinking in terms of US tons. Turns out, it was 2750 METRIC tons of explosives, which is 3031.356 US tons....or 6,062,712 pounds. A small factoid, but interesting to me. What’s a other 281.356 tons, give or take? To put things into perspective, the Oklahoma City bombing used 7000 lbs of explosives....or 35 US tons. Thus, the difference in measurement between metric tons and US tons in Beirut was 8 times larger than then ENTIRE Oklahoma City bomb.

Another way of looking at it: A 2000-lb bunker buster bomb (BLU-109, actually weighing 1,927 lbs) contains 530 lbs of high explosives....or .240404 metric tons of explosive. I'm no kind of explosives expert at all, but if my math is right, then Beirut explosion was roughly the equivalent of 11,439 2000-lb bunker busters going off, minus the shrapnel.

One "British" Imperial ton (tonne? ) / US ton = 2,000 lbs.
One "Long Ton" (aka Metric Ton) = 1000 kilograms = 2200 lbs.

[Grayling813]

Before and after picture of the explosion site. Huge crater. If the ammonium nitrate was on the floor of the warehouse at ground level, why did the explosion create a deep crater? Seems like the force of the blast at ground level would have completely collapsed the adjacent grain elevators.

[Beiruty]

It’s a bad situation and our thoughts are of course for the Lebanese people effected. That said, knowing dock workers, and how pitiful OSHA type organizations are here in the States, I doubt it is going to be much more than a sad chain of events that caused this to happen. Some poor schmuck was likely doing work in a bad conditions with little to no formal training and zero safety training. This coupled with what is apparently criminal negligence in storing so many Haz-Mat in the same area which could fuel the triangle for an explosion.

Don’t see a need to chase bogey men down a rabbit hole.

Very plausible explanation. Add to that the small firearm ammo crackling like crazy few seconds before the second big explosion add to the negligent criminality of the storage of such extremely large amount of explosives and ammo.

[jason812]

Before and after picture of the explosion site. Huge crater. If the ammonium nitrate was on the floor of the warehouse at ground level, why did the explosion create a deep crater? Seems like the force of the blast at ground level would have completely collapsed the adjacent grain elevators.

port 7.jpg

It appears that the grain silos were full. Hence they would act like giant sand bags and be hard to completely flatten. The West explosion also left a pretty good size crater.

I'm not saying that this wasn't intentional and I'm not saying it was.

[Paladin]

Before and after picture of the explosion site. Huge crater. If the ammonium nitrate was on the floor of the warehouse at ground level, why did the explosion create a deep crater? Seems like the force of the blast at ground level would have completely collapsed the adjacent grain elevators.

port 7.jpg

Grain silos are extraordinary difficult to destroy. At Stalingrad the Wehrmacht tried and failed to destroy Soviet grain silos. The Russians finally ran out of water and ammo and left the silos.

[Mike S]

Before and after picture of the explosion site. Huge crater. If the ammonium nitrate was on the floor of the warehouse at ground level, why did the explosion create a deep crater? Seems like the force of the blast at ground level would have completely collapsed the adjacent grain elevators.

port 7.jpg

Regarding the crater, that is typical for a large explosion, especially with ammonium nitrate. Ammonium nitrate as an explosive has a much slower detonating velocity than TNT, dynamite, etc, so it tends to make a crater as it 'pushes' it's energy 360*.

And that was ALOT of ammonium nitrate.

[RoyGBiv]

1 MT = 1,000Kg = 2204.62 pounds.
2750 MT = 6.06 million pounds

I don't believe it is correct to equate atomic bomb yields which are measured in terms of equivalent weights of TNT (Kilotons). This would only be correct if the energy yielded by 1 measure of TNT is equal to the energy released by exploding the same measure of Ammonium Nitrate.

/pedant

[The Annoyed Man]

1 MT = 1,000Kg = 2204.62 pounds.
2750 MT = 6.06 million pounds

I don't believe it is correct to equate atomic bomb yields which are measured in terms of equivalent weights of TNT (Kilotons). This would only be correct if the energy yielded by 1 measure of TNT is equal to the energy released by exploding the same measure of Ammonium Nitrate.

/pedant

Here I was, thinking in terms of US tons. Turns out, it was 2750 METRIC tons of explosives, which is 3031.356 US tons....or 6,062,712 pounds. A small factoid, but interesting to me. What’s a other 281.356 tons, give or take? To put things into perspective, the Oklahoma City bombing used 7000 lbs of explosives....or 35 US tons. Thus, the difference in measurement between metric tons and US tons in Beirut was 8 times larger than then ENTIRE Oklahoma City bomb.

Another way of looking at it: A 2000-lb bunker buster bomb (BLU-109, actually weighing 1,927 lbs) contains 530 lbs of high explosives....or .240404 metric tons of explosive. I'm no kind of explosives expert at all, but if my math is right, then Beirut explosion was roughly the equivalent of 11,439 2000-lb bunker busters going off, minus the shrapnel.

Great minds, etc.

And yeah, I missed a decimal when I typed "35 US tons". Should have read "3.5 US tons" for the OKC bombing. But a BLU-109 (2000 lb bunker buster) does carry 530 lbs of explosives. Granted they are of a higher order type than ammonium nitrate, but at some point, it’s academic. 6,062,712 lbs of explosives, divided by 530 lbs of explosives/bunker buster, means that the Beirut explosion was roughly equivalent to a significant percentage of the explosive power of 11,439 bunker busters.

It’s absolutely astonishing. One wonders how much longer Hezbollah's fortunes will continue to last in Beirut.

[jerry_r60]

Here is the best video so far supporting the theory of an air attack. The sound of supersonic plane/missile is can be clearly heart few seconds before the explosion. This is the first attack, resulting in the first small explosion of the ammo depot. There is another video that may show the second attack wave.
Most likely the couple taking video did not make it, but I am not certain.
https://www.facebook.com/hamzah.fakih/p ... 9504919180

I didn't hear any aircraft. The video starts with the building already on fire. The fire grows and a smaller explosion happens from inside the building. I heard air drafting, but no aircraft or bomb. But, I could be wrong, of course. Not long after the first explosion, the second bigger explosion. Again, nothing that sounded like an aircraft.

@Beiruty ... Very glad to hear that your family is mostly ok. I was thinking about you most of the day yesterday and was glad to read your posts here. Best wishes to the Lebanese working to recover from this disaster.

I was was confused because right from the start it was already burning/smoking however, at about 1:15 in you start hearing what does sound like a jet coming in (to my untrained ear and prompted to be listening for it), you also hear the people all of a sudden getting amped up and then you see a new big explosion but still not THE big one.

[jerry_r60]

Before UN in 2018

This video seems to imply that the explosion was at that "Site 1" by Netanyahu showing a potential target on the "waters edge" and then showing the blast on the waters edge however, I did a quick lookup on a map and the explosion is a bit farther north, up the coast. On the map linked below you can see where the airport is and that little site 1 peninsula and where the blast site is.

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.8579182 ... 11jq0bjlz7

[Beiruty]

Before UN in 2018

This video seems to imply that the explosion was at that "Site 1" by Netanyahu showing a potential target on the "waters edge" and then showing the blast on the waters edge however, I did a quick lookup on a map and the explosion is a bit farther north, up the coast. On the map linked below you can see where the airport is and that little site 1 peninsula and where the blast site is.

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.8579182 ... 11jq0bjlz7

Site 1 and all the maps are not where the explosion happened. It is another place, a small marina south of Beirut, near the airport.

[Beiruty]

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A ... VWexvyvOtQ

[jerry_r60]

Before UN in 2018

This video seems to imply that the explosion was at that "Site 1" by Netanyahu showing a potential target on the "waters edge" and then showing the blast on the waters edge however, I did a quick lookup on a map and the explosion is a bit farther north, up the coast. On the map linked below you can see where the airport is and that little site 1 peninsula and where the blast site is.

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.8579182 ... 11jq0bjlz7

Site 1 and all the maps are not where the explosion happened. It is another place, a small marina south of Beirut, near the airport.

Yeah, that's what i was trying to show.

[philip964]

https://news.yahoo.com/lebanese-officia ... 24998.html

Port officials knew of the problem with bomb at their port.

Wrote letters to judges to resolve situation and got no response.

Port officials detained by Government.

[philip964]

https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaki ... om-beirut/

horrifying footage from Beirut