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Re:Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilo... by supernova87a on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @02:47AM (#24057956)
The amount of material must have been ridiculous to store in such a place. The blast is staggering in size, almost like the Tianjin explosion a few years ago.

Collected videos:

Angle #1 https://streamable.com/xmmoa7

Angle #2 https://streamable.com/nscx9m

Angle #3 https://streamable.com/zbjj5f

Angle #4 https://streamable.com/saoafz

Angle #5 https://streamable.com/4ga1vb

Angle #6 https://streamable.com/lmivb2

Angle #7 https://streamable.com/mcy82f

Angle #8 https://streamable.com/zg9oal

Angle #9 https://streamable.com/zykkj6

Angle #10 https://streamable.com/22e152

Re:Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilo... by markdown on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @05:37AM (#24058863)
> The amount of material must have been ridiculous to store in such a place.

This is a photo supposedly of the warehouse: https://imgbb.com/r4Q64xc

Re:Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilo... by yxhuvud on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @05:41AM (#24058884)
Roughly twice the amount exploded compared to Tianjin, actually. 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate compared to 800 tonnes of ammonium nitrates and 600 tonnes of potassium nitrate in Tianjin.

So yes, quite ridiculous.

Re:Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilo... by velox_io on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @12:30PM (#24062656)
What strikes me as odd (aside from the massive shockwave), is how there were no fireballs, all other fertilizer fires have bright explosions. It's burnt rather than detonated. Here, all of the fertilizer ignited faster than the speed of sound (resulting in a virtually perfect spherical shockwave). Although the shockwave could have doused any flames, so that idea is plausible..

The other anomaly is the deep red smoke, that's something that seems unusual too (aside from storing so much fertilizer in such a built up area for so long). This is a disaster on so many levels, but then when is a disaster only caused by a single issue?

Re:Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilo... by contravariant on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @12:46PM (#24062843)
You're just not looking hard enough. The video used in this post has exactly 1 frame where the fireball is clearly visible [1]. I'm guessing the sheer scale just threw you off.

[1]: https://i.imgur.com/Nvb7lWJ.png

Re:Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilo... by hn_throwaway_99 on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @01:39PM (#24063397)
I read a news article that said the deep red smoke is a hallmark of ammonium nitrate.
Re:Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilo... by KMag on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @09:06PM (#24067261)
Yes, particularly ammonium nitrate (or another nitrate) without enough fuel to consume the excessive oxygen released when the nitrate decomposes. Nitrogen dioxide is that deep red-orange. It's the most common oxidizer in hypergolic rocket motors (though, they pressurize and cool it to get it to largely dimerize dinitrogen tetroxide). The other oxides of nitrogen produced by ammonium nitrate decomposition are basically colorless. Hot nitrogen dioxide would have pretty much instantly oxidized any fuel present, releasing more energy and dramatically toning down that deep red-orange color.

This is good evidence against an intentional detonation. Even if it were arson, it probably wasn't an intentional detonation. It's inconceivable that anyone with enough research to successfully cause an ammonium nitrate detonation wouldn't have run across the fact that any of a number of cheap organic fuels increase both the power and reliability of ammonium nitrate explosions. So, it's very unlikely this was an intentional explosion, unless they were trying to make it look like an accident. If they were trying to make it look like an accident, then the objective wasn't to generate fear in the populace / political change, and any conspiracy theorist then has the problem of having to figure out what the specific target was, since we can rule out the general populace. This should put most conspiracy theories to rest, at least without silly statements by the tweeter-in-chief.

Re:Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilo... by sozy777 on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @03:53AM (#24058285)
Re:Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilo... by nitred on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @06:44AM (#24059247)
In Angle #6, did that crack in the roof occur in real time due to the explosion or does it just seem that way due to low resolution of the camera? If that crack was due to the explosion, then I'm concerned for much of the infrastructure which is within a 3 KM radius around the explosion.
Re:Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilo... by mh- on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @03:24PM (#24064510)
I believe we watched it happen in realtime. If you turn your volume up (careful, the initial blast is quite louder) you can hear [what I believe is] it cracking. Yikes.
Re:Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilo... by vishnugupta on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @09:08AM (#24060362)
It does seem to be real time. I noticed the delay as well in angle #7. The shock wave hits the car and the driver a good 3-4 seconds after the blast.
Re:Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilo... by 5m17h on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @04:27AM (#24058482)
The Tianjin explosion has been in the impression that many Chinese people have forgotten
Re:Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilo... by schoen on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @03:38PM (#24064702)
I found angle #8 the most abjectly terrifying of these. :-(
Re:Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilo... by glaberficken on Thursday August 06, 2020 @08:27AM (#24070306)
That's the first video I saw on the breaking news, gut reaction was "that really looks like Hollywood cgi to me".