Huge explosion in Beirut

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Dale00

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I just stumbled onto the "rest of the story"
The ammonium nitrate came from a Russian ship diverted to Beirut to take on some heavy equipment. The ship attempted to load the equipment but the captain decided they could not do so safely. A lengthy argument ensued. As the clock was ticking harbor fees were being incurred and the shipping company refused to pay. Eventually the crew left the ship and the explosive cargo was unloaded by port authorities and stored where it would later explode, destroying much of the city. https://gcaptain.com/beiruts-accidental-cargo-how-an-unscheduled-port-visit-led-to-disaster/
 

Seadog

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But another ship across the harbor was capsized. Pressure waves do freaky things.
I speculate that the shockwave blast slammed the ship up against the mooring wall hard enough to rupture her hull. That’s what I think would’ve caused it to capsize and sink.
 

Seadog

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So if I am understanding this right, a welder on the roof caught something on fire which in turn caused fireworks to ignite. That in turn caused the ammonium nitrate thats been sitting there for the last seven years after it was seized to go off. Talk about a colossal series of unfortunate events.

An article I read said that those grain silos house about 80% of the countries grain supplies. That’s another unfortunate event. Like someone else posted I am really shocked that those towers didn’t go up. I guess they must’ve been full to the top without much dust in them
 

Truckdriver

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So if I am understanding this right, a welder on the roof caught something on fire which in turn caused fireworks to ignite. That in turn caused the ammonium nitrate thats been sitting there for the last seven years after it was seized to go off. Talk about a colossal series of unfortunate events.

An article I read said that those grain silos house about 80% of the countries grain supplies. That’s another unfortunate event. Like someone else posted I am really shocked that those towers didn’t go up. I guess they must’ve been full to the top without much dust in them

There was a fire in the fireworks factory next to the AN storage warehouse. Here is video of the fireworks factory right at the first explosion

https://mobile.twitter.com/Woj_Pawelczyk/status/1290756576849133570

You can see the rapid pressure and fire work it's way out the windows

The 2nd blast was moments later.


The thing about AN is that it isnt inherently explosive in its "relaxed" state. You can set a match on it and no boom. It takes a bit of work to get it unstable enough to be explosive. You have to either mix in additional ingredients to change the composition, OR you have to apply heat AND pressure. Heat and pressure make it definitely unstable through oxidation

Here is a news article from 2019 in Arkansas about a truck full of AN that had a brake fire. The fire grew and applied heat to the tank which created a lot of pressure, then either the tank split or the fire worked it's way through to the AN and the whole thing detonated

https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2019/mar/28/blaze-sets-off-fertilizer-load-rig-driv-1/


The welders might have made a small fire or not been at cause at all for the AN to go off. They might have started the fireworks factory fire though.

The main reason the AN went off, according to theory, is that the fireworks factory fire radiated enough heat to begin to destabilize the AN. Then the initial factory explosion created enough pressure to finish the instability. Then add an ignition source such as flaming debris from the initial explosion, and BLAMMO! Beirut has a new orifice!

That's the theory anyway, with pretty much a big hole filled with water, nobody will ever really know what happened
 
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