Locals are saying fireworks are stored in that area.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geop...-filmed-over-lebanon

In the second video, you can see several small explosions preceeding the big explosion.

I cannot believe that was fireworks going off.

If it wasn't an arms cache, I suspect it was a large quantity of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and that this explosion was similar to that in Texas City.

Looked like it had been on fire for a while so maybe it reached whereverthe store the bulk explosives?

The large hotel looking build next to where that blast went off is toast. If it was full there's going to be a large body count.

I see the individual pops you're talking about. But that main blast was a single large mass of explosives.

That was one hell of a shock wave and explosion whatever it was!

Nowhere near Texas City. If it was that large, everything in the scene and the cameraman would have been torn apart.

That's one heck of an explosion, must have been a megashiton of fireworks.

The video of the shock wave coming at the boat was wild...

I don't think that was fireworks. There would have been streaks and sparks all over.

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
I don't think that was fireworks. There would have been streaks and sparks all over.

flashguy

You can see a bunch of flashes in the second video. I've witnessed a lot of explosions with military explosives in my EOD days but I've never seen a shock wave that fast.

I have a hard time believing that is due to fireworks ONLY. But I'm not an OED Specialist...

Trivia question for the explosives experts: do the different colors and kinds of smoke really say anything about the explosion? To my layman's eye, the initial dark gray cloud looked like what one might expect from dense material on fire, the light gray smoke looked like concrete dust being blown off in every direction, and the brown/red smoke looked like there was an explosion directed down directly into dirt.

Really powerful "fireworks"!

Sorry, this is on the FB, a lot closer video


https://www.facebook.com/ForAm...zA1MDIyNzQyODY5OTAy/

Definitely NOT Fireworks!

It's Beirut, gonna be hard to tell the previously damaged buildings from the current damaged buildings.

Looks like fire at a fireworks plant that spread to an area where gunpowder was stored in bulk. There is certainly precedent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...idents_and_incidents

Yes, if people are saying this was caused by fireworks, it has to be a fireworks factory.

Jesus, that escalated quickly.

That had to have killed a bunch of folks. Sad.

I’ve seen Some type of Chlorate based explosives based on the Color.

quote:

Originally posted by RAMIUS:
I’ve seen Some type of Chlorate based explosives based on the Color.

How much chlorate would it take to color-up a non-nuclear mushroom cloud like that? That massive a detonation, I'm assuming fertilizer or, some kind of oxidizer.

Pretty tragic for that area, bad enough the Syrians & Iranians have eff'd Beirut up, it was once known as Paris on the Med, a sophisticated seaside resort town that has been torn apart by extremists.