Holy ****. 😞

https://www.facebook.com/1681425222/posts/10214816624044114/

That’s awful, I genuinely wasn’t expecting that.

Holy shit, that is terrifying.

The BBC is giving no explanation. That looked like a very professionally executed strike.

Made me feel sick to be honest. Reports of there being an aircraft flying very low overhead immediately before first explosion.

Dreadful stuff.

fireworks factory?

Looks like some FW’s going off before the blast, add in some nitrates.

There have been problems simmering in the background for a while, but seeing somewhere like Lebanon regress (with all they have experienced in the past) is very sad.

Let’s hope they can put the lid back on this situation.

It’s not as if the US or UK has any statesmen worthy of the name in a position to help.

Crikey! Mini mushroom cloud!

Reported on radio on way home – talk of firework factory in the port, or munitions store, also local reporter talking of low flying jet just prior to explosion but bloody hell that’s big. Wasn’t expecting that.
Thoughts and prayers – going to be a big death toll with that size explosion

No chance is that a firework explosion.

Apparently it was a store of sodium nitrate confiscated from a ship that exploded, horrific blast.

Fuel-air bomb?

Initial charge to put the vapour out, then a massive second explosion when the fuel-air mix ignites?

Isn’t that how the ‘daisy cutters’ the US used in Afghanistan work?

If you were aiming to drop a bomb from a jet, what better target than a flour silo or fireworks factory or chemical storage: amplify your payload and pass the buck

That shockwave. Horrifying.

No chance is that a firework explosion.

Have a look at the footage from the Chinese one that blew up.

Ammonium nitrate silo is the other option.

EDIT that brown/orange smoke in the video may be a giveaway for some ammonium nitrate involvement.

That explosion is HUGE! Don’t remember seeing anything near that scale being shown on the news before. There are cars that have been flipped over, whole warehouses striped to just a very wonky frame! That’s terrible! Can that amount of damage be from an accident in a firework factory or even a terrorist DIY device? or does point towards proper military grade weapons being used?

EDIT: just seen the images from the Chinese firework factory that blew up! holy crap I can’t believes any would think its fine to have that much stuff that blows up in one place that (outside of an ammunition store!).

live on AlJazeera tv, huge destruction all around and many casualties, and as per usual, some silly responces on Google streetview reviews of the silos.

I liked working in Beirut – in one of the few times recently where people haven’t been fighting each other. Really friendly and welcoming.

That is a massive explosion and will have affected buildings for miles around.

Really sad to see this 🙁

Another angle here:

https://twitter.com/kingashu1008/status/1290695116844175362?s=20

Looks horrific – this is from a different angle

A video I received on WhatsApp of the scalr of explosion in #Beirut, confirming it was at the port. pic.twitter.com/bIkcyfsi0o

— Bissan Fakih (@BissanCampaigns) August 4, 2020

I’m calling this Beirut thing:

— Dan Kaszeta (@DanKaszeta) August 4, 2020

Bloody hell. You’d need hundreds of tonnes of stuff for a blast like that, must surely be an industrial accident not military. Dreadful.

Reports of the blast being felt in Cyprus!

Only heard about this disaster via this thread…. Watched the first video above, saw the first few seconds of the white smoke and thought jeez that’s awful…. Then the unexpected big explosion happened. ****

Reminds me of AZF Toulouse 20 years back. In that case it was 400 tonnes of ammonium nitrate amongst other things. About a thousand people still have hearing damage. Seisometers recorded an earth quake of 3.5. It’s never been proven what caused the blast, one possibility is a métiorite!

One of the videos popped up on a WhatsApp group I’m in with no explanation other than “Fireworks”. Was totally unprepared for what happened.

That is going to be one hell of a lot of lives lost. Thoughts with everyone out there.

It’s absolutely horrific, the Lebanese Red Cross has reported 2,200 casualties so far

C4 News says ammonium nitrate which can detonate on this scale

Oppau

That mushroom cloud was one distinctive colour, I bet a few chemical experts around the world know exactly what it was that went boom

Bloody hell. You’d need hundreds of tonnes of stuff for a blast like that, must surely be an industrial accident not military. Dreadful.

I don’t think there’s a conventional weapon capable enough.

Reminded me of reading about the Halifax explosion.

The red of the smoke means nitrogen byproducts so probably either amonium nitrate or sodium nitrate. Based on the damage radius in some of the videos some experts (actual relevant ones) on twitter think approx equiv of 240 tons tnt. This roughly corresponds to the reports from semisgraphs that are coming out.

The big grain silo that just got obliterated handles 70%ish of the entire countries grain too.

Terrible.

very similar to SS John Burke. Ammunition ship hit by a Kamakazi..

That’s black smoke not red, Klunk. Here’s a link to the smoke in Toulouse from mainly ammonium nitrate:

http://www.ici-grenoble.org/agenda/evenement.php?id=5027

Ports tend to be organised by type of activity, Ammonium nitrate fertilizer near to grain towers is logical.

I was alluding to the scale and the shock wave, not the smoke colour and given most munitions would be made with nitrates/nitrations.

Horrific, utterly horrific.

Hmmm.. the white flashes before the big bang look like munitions flashing off.
I’m thinking more a munitions dump?

Shock wave was enormous!

What would be a reason for storing such large quantities of ammonium nitrate? Given the large fire you’d hope a well managed port would evacuate. Although it was so big you’d have been evacuating a fair few km. Not a nice moment for Lebanon.

it has previous…

Horrendous situation.

Having visited twice over the past few years, Lebanon will always have a place in my heart. The locals were very hospitable, loads of history and just a super place to visit. My thoughts are with all in Beirut.

They are reporting 2700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate went up. Had been stored for 6 years.
That is an unreal amount to explode and I hope not but there will surely be a huge number of deaths

For context, the Oklahoma City bombers used about 2 tonnes; that was enough to destroy 1 building and damage 286 others.
Scale that up to 2,750 tonnes.
Being reported that the warehouse was ‘unsecured’.

do we know how long the the initial fire was burning for ? going by the released video clips it can’t have been very long you would have noticed a blaze like that if it had been burning a while.

From a CNN report:
“There were conflicting reports on what caused the explosion, which was initially blamed on a major fire at a warehouse for firecrackers near the port, according to Lebanese state news agency NNA.
The director of the general security directorate later said the blast was caused by “high explosive materials confiscated years ago,” but did not provide further details.
An investigation into the explosion was announced by Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab. The probe will include “revelations that will be announced about this dangerous warehouse which has been present since 2014,” he said, without providing any additional details.
CNN’s Ben Wedeman reported that authorities think a large amount of ammonium nitrate seized from a ship in 2013 or 2014 may have caused the blast.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/04/middleeast/beirut-explosion-port-intl/
The first I knew of this was a Flipboard article I spotted about four hours ago, I hadn’t seen any news at all, and the scale of the actual blast was shocking, the shockwave looked like a nuke!
Reports are saying that the port has been destroyed. Just shocking. 🙁