Devastation, wow. Can only hope the numbers will be low, but after watching several videos I don't see how that will be case.

Amomonia nitrate needs a booster in order to detonate is my understanding. Something else would have had to trigger that, assuming enough fireworks would do the trick and/or something else caught fire or exploded before the ammonia nitrate, if that's what was being stored there.

The first thing I thought of was this was fake as hell. The white vapor looking shockwaves were crazy looking.

I'm going with option #3 as the most plausible...

Possible causes of Beirut explosion:

• Firecrackers exploded due to large and negligible production ( Al Jazeera)
• The warehouse was stored with benzene ( Al Mayeeden)
• A Hezbollah missile store was targeted near the Beirut port (Al Hadath)


https://www.thegatewaypundit.c...-missiles-hezbollah/

Update from the OP link.

Beirut's economically vital port appears to be utterly destroyed. Early reports cited at least 400 wounded and dozens killed, with local hospitals overwhelmed. While Lebanese government officials initially identified a fireworks depot at the site of the largest explosion in Lebanon's history (even over years and decades of prior wars), it's now being widely reported that Ammonium Nitrate, a very explosive compound and commonly used as a high-nitrogen fertilizer, was being stored at the location.

I read elsewhere fireworks set off some stored Ammonium Nitrate.

I trust not next to a diesel fuel tank farm...

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Definitely NOT Fireworks!

I am not sure. I saw a number of smaller explosions before the big one. But maybe those were just smaller stuff like blocks of TNT, or grenades, etc.

Anyway, it was one helluva blast!

The large structure that you see is most likely a storage silo complex, not a hotel. It would make sense for that to be near the port. Grain? Fertilizer? I would imagine that was some sort of fertilizer like Ammonium Nitrate to make that big of an explosion

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:
Trivia question for the explosives experts: do the different colors and kinds of smoke really say anything about the explosion?

The short answer is "yes."

Probably the simpliest example is black powder versus smokeless powder.

When BP burns the resultant smoke is dark grey to black due to the presence of soot (from unburned carbon) in the smoke.

When smokless burns is is light grey in color because the combustion is far more efficient, with most of the carbon converted to carbon dioxide.

Then there are the different colors of smoke grenades, which is due to the composition of the fill.

Given the large grain silos on the port, is it possible we watched one of the more spectacular dust explosions?

Dust explosions are a danger around coal mines and grain elevators, it's detonation is the same principal as thermobaric explosions: the air is saturated with easily combustable material and an ignition source ignites causing a powerful explosion and shock-wave.

Dock workers are moving grain to/from one of the ships in port, meanwhile a nearby fire is raging out of control, fire gets big enough to ignite some of the materials in the air and BOOM!

Damn that was a huge explosion!!

Have they pissed off the Israelis lately?

Made me want to duck and cover.

After what happened on Oct 23 1983, it couldn't have happened to a nicer place. Too bad it did not level the city.

"YOU GOT YOUR HAMAS IN MY HEZBOLLAH!"


"YOU GOT YOUR HEZBOLLAH IN MY HAMAS!"

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:
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.

The initial gray smoke could have been anything from a typical fire. The whitish, curved cloud is condensed water vapor on the front of the shock wave, similar to what occurs on the wings of a jet during supersonic flight. The orange/red smoke appeared to be NOx. That is often produced from many large detonations of various materials, including ammonium nitrate especially. Large amounts of bulk AN have detonated during a fire multiple times in the past around the world.

Based on my experience, that did NOT appear to be fireworks. Bulk constituents of fireworks manufacture could possibly detonate like that, but it would take a lot of material.

Most chlorate based mixtures give white smoke (which is solid KCl), though it can vary dependent upon what type of fuel is used.

Based on the size/magnitude of the shock wave and the color of the smoke, I'd also be skeptical of a dust explosion.

I just caught this image of the dock area. Unimaginable destruction.



Jim

Fireworks.... Right.

Here are some Twitter and YT URLs to video (I stripped out the hyperlinks) of the impressive pressure wave. It looks like a small a BLU-96 FAE bomb went off. In the 1988 did a paper for a technical writing class on the potential for terrorists to attack the chemical manufacturing sector, and one of the examples I found was a large natural gas storage tank outside of Beirut that was hit by artillery fire. Based on my recollection, it was dwarfed by this explosion.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1290669240173965313
https://twitter.com/i/status/1290674490200993792
https://youtu.be/YCpolQ9F-iM
https://youtu.be/X3o7ZbB5Bqs
https://youtu.be/ruIHp8sgQ_E

What’s left of Beirut’s port, gateway to lots of places like Syria and Jordan:


Another of the port’s grain silos:


Damage around the city (videos)
https://twitter.com/beastbahi/.../1290699305246953480
https://twitter.com/i/status/1290718420791689219
https://twitter.com/i/status/1290686408508739584
https://twitter.com/i/status/1290714301590896640
https://twitter.com/i/status/1290715722172203008

Here's another one.



Jim