
Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT - sinab
https://twitter.com/sinabooeshaghi/status/1290727092884299778
======
supernova87a
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](https://streamable.com/xmmoa7)

Angle #2 [https://streamable.com/nscx9m](https://streamable.com/nscx9m)

Angle #3 [https://streamable.com/zbjj5f](https://streamable.com/zbjj5f)

Angle #4 [https://streamable.com/saoafz](https://streamable.com/saoafz)

Angle #5 [https://streamable.com/4ga1vb](https://streamable.com/4ga1vb)

Angle #6 [https://streamable.com/lmivb2](https://streamable.com/lmivb2)

Angle #7 [https://streamable.com/mcy82f](https://streamable.com/mcy82f)

Angle #8 [https://streamable.com/zg9oal](https://streamable.com/zg9oal)

Angle #9 [https://streamable.com/zykkj6](https://streamable.com/zykkj6)

Angle #10 [https://streamable.com/22e152](https://streamable.com/22e152)

~~~
nitred
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.

~~~
mh-
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.

------
sillysaurusx
@quantian1 correctly determined that this was an ammonium nitrate blast by
analyzing the footage:

[https://twitter.com/quantian1/status/1290695231910875136](https://twitter.com/quantian1/status/1290695231910875136)

 _CHEMISTRY FACT: Explosives have characteristic "detonation velocities" at
which shockwaves expand. Smartphone video records at 30 FPS, so the adjacent
frames here suggest the front expands at ~100 m/(1/30 sec), or 3,000 m/sec.
Consistent with ammonium nitrate, not black powder._

This was confirmed a few hours later:

[https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/1290758551737192455](https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/1290758551737192455)

 _Lebanese president blames 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate left in warehouse
unchecked for six years for devastating Beirut blast_

EDIT: By the way, one of my friends was almost killed by the explosion.
Thankfully they're ok. But they said:

[https://twitter.com/cyrilzakka/status/1290766217989500928](https://twitter.com/cyrilzakka/status/1290766217989500928)

 _This was terrifying to experience. Hospitals are being overrun with injured
people. We need blood donations and disaster relief. Help however you can._

As a US citizen, is there any way I can help directly? Is there any
organization that ships blood donations directly to a disaster site? I suppose
that would be very difficult, so the answer is probably no; it's frustrating
not being able to assist.

~~~
chmod775
Some chemist acquaintances of mine suggested the same from just looking at the
footage immediately after. Along with some scary explanations of what fast
shockwaves like that do to human blood vessels.

I was convinced this stuff should be outlawed for most uses pretty fast.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_nitrate_disasters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_nitrate_disasters)

Though on the other hand, the number of incidents and deaths aren't that high
considering how prevalent it is. It's just that a critical failure of handling
that stuff is quite spectacularly bad.

~~~
nradov
Ammonium nitrate is essential as a fertilizer. There are no cost effective
alternatives so we'll have to just accept the risk.

~~~
zsellera
You can decrease such risks by mixing carbonate minerals (calcium-carbonate
and magnesium carboante) into the AN fertilizer, as done in EU counties (and
probably in the rest of the world as well).

~~~
menybuvico
Not to mention that you don't need to store 2750 tonnes of it in a warehouse
in a harbour in a large city like Beirut.

~~~
gonzo41
The natural heat was the killer. IF twitter was right the fire started from
sparks from a welding on a door. The AN must have already been decomposing in
the heat and under weight just waiting.

I wonder how often this storage facility was at a critical point like this.
Like how many hot days. How often before this. It makes you think about all
the other risks sitting out there just waiting for a small spark.

~~~
codebolt
There was also fireworks going of just before the blast. Storing 2750 tons of
AN next to a fireworks cache seems cartoonishly stupid.

[https://twitter.com/ConflictsW/status/1290681902781861888?s=...](https://twitter.com/ConflictsW/status/1290681902781861888?s=19)

~~~
varjag
If prior to the explosion you were told that all dangerous cargo is stored in
dangerous cargo area of the port, would you've thought it is stupid?

~~~
Chris2048
I'd expect the "dangerous cargo area" to be a specialised, and somewhat more
highly scrutinised area of the port.

~~~
varjag
These are the realities in many parts of the world: safety routines are
followed only as much as to obtain the necessary international
certification/rating for the site.

Consider this the next time there's discussion about merits of introducing
nuclear power globally.

------
kgm
I am seeing other analyses that put the size of the explosion at about one
tenth of this size.

The analysis in this Twitter thread correlates the observed degree of damage
with the distance from the explosion. It comes up with an estimated 240 tons
TNT-equivalent, though naturally this comes with a considerable margin of
error.

[https://twitter.com/GeorgeWHerbert/status/129071971954515968...](https://twitter.com/GeorgeWHerbert/status/1290719719545159680)

This Twitter thread is making the point that the explosiveness of ammonium
nitrate can vary significantly depending on how it is stored. 2750 tons of AN
at 20% efficiency gives 550 tons TNT.

[https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/12907955327014256...](https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/1290795532701425664)

This range is also apparently consistent with the explosion registering as a
3.5 seismic magnitude.

[https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/12907348507695267...](https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/1290734850769526784)

There are still a great many unknowns, and none of this should be mistaken for
the real analysis which will come later, but these disparate sources of
information all seem to agree with each other, to a first approximation.

~~~
WalterBright
My fluid mechanics prof told the class that a scientist in the 1940's
published the yield of the Hiroshima bomb. Since this was top secret, he got
investigated. But he showed how the yield could be calculated from the film of
the explosion - how fast the blast radius expanded.

So I imagine the yield of the Beirut explosion could be calculated the same
way from the video.

~~~
rmm
Paper in question.

[http://sites.science.oregonstate.edu/~restrepo/MTH481/Classn...](http://sites.science.oregonstate.edu/~restrepo/MTH481/Classnotes/GITaylor/GITaylorAnalysis.pdf)

From videos:

R=450m

t=1.5s

rho=1.2kg/m3

E=9.84E12 kg.m2/s2 or 9.84E19 erg

Equiv TNT = 2.5kTonnes -TNT

Equiv AN = 5400 Tonnes

So double what current media is saying.

edit:formatting.

~~~
Denvercoder9
You have to be careful about your errors though with this method, because you
get higher-order powers. If the radius estimation was wrong by only 10%, your
final answer will be wrong by almost 50%.

------
einarfd
Al Jazeera is reporting that according to the president in Lebanon, it was
almost three thousand tons of ammonium nitrate that blew up
[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/huge-explosion-
rocks-...](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/huge-explosion-rocks-
lebanon-capital-beirut-live-updates-200804163620414.html) .

~~~
nodesocket
It's hard to imagine, but that would mean this explosion was nearly 3.5x
larger than 2015 Tianjin[1] which was 800 tonnes of ammonium nitrate (336 tons
TNT equivalent). The video[2] from Tianjin looked way bigger and apocalyptic,
but perhaps just because of the the fireball.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Tianjin_explosions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Tianjin_explosions)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONsmJAyFAAw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONsmJAyFAAw)

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Yeah, honestly, the Beirut explosion looked bigger/scarier to me, like how
they show nuclear explosions in the movies. The Tianjin explosion was an
enormous fireball but didn't seem to have the same magnitude of shockwave from
the videos I've seen of it.

~~~
actuator
From the videos I have seen the Tianjin fireball seemed to rage even for a
longer duration. In the Beirut one maybe because of daylight, fire is not
visible after the big blast. I wonder what would cause that difference, the
Beirut one supposedly had more material as well.

~~~
aaomidi
Longer fire = less energy for explosion?

~~~
grogenaut
High explosives burn too fast for regular flames and suck the oxygen out for
subsequent burning. Though you can definitely see fire in the first few
frames.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Adair](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Adair)
got famous for putting out oil well fires with high explosives. Explosives on
burn that fast due to their chemical structure not because of free oxygen in
the atmosphere. So if you see a fireball, the explosion has slowed way down.

People are used to huge fireballs in movies because they just aerosolize
gasoline or others for that effect. Also it's a lot safer than high
explosives. High explosives are dangerous.

An goes at around 10,000 feet/second or 6,800mph or 10,900 kmh.

In those videos when the white large cloud comes out (likely some form of the
air being hyper compressed by the shockwave and forced faster than the speed
of sound) I was like drop Camera get behind wall nooooooowwww. Or we'll keep
camera it may be useful in about 45 minutes.

~~~
jabl
> In those videos when the white large cloud comes out (likely some form of
> the air being hyper compressed by the shockwave and forced faster than the
> speed of sound)

The white cloud is due to the shockwave causing moisture in the atmosphere to
condense. Or rather immediately after the shockwave in the low pressure
region.

You can see the same effect sometimes due to supersonic aircraft.

~~~
a_e_k
Also known as a Wilson cloud:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_cloud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_cloud)

------
sio8ohPi
Similar in size to the Halifax explosion, then.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion)

~~~
skim_milk
Wow, and for comparison the viral 2015 Tianjin explosions in total released 28
tonnes of TNT of energy, or 100GJ.

~~~
sparker72678
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Tianjin_explosions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Tianjin_explosions)
notes "336 tons TNT equivalent."

~~~
mrep
A single m87 thermonuclear warhead has a detonation yeild of 300 tons of tnt,
and a single ICBM can carry up to 10 of those.

Absolutely terrifying.

~~~
sparker72678
Yes, utterly horrifying on those points alone, to say nothing of the added
destruction that air blast and supersonic shockwaves will do, even before you
get to radiation.

------
tzs
This video [1] from The Guardian include the same video in that tweet, but
also has a few other angles which gives a better appreciation of how big that
thing was.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93tV6-0Ugwk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93tV6-0Ugwk)

~~~
look_lookatme
This video is the one that made me gasp the hardest:
[https://twitter.com/FadyRoumieh/status/1290670721488900096](https://twitter.com/FadyRoumieh/status/1290670721488900096)

Something about the distance and the fact that it's on water puts everything
into stark relief.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
The interesting part about the explosion in the video is that there's two
clouds: first the rapidly expanding almost perfectly spherical white puff, and
then the slower dark black mushroom cloud. I vaguely recall the first is
mostly water vapor that suddenly condenses out of the air because of the
massive shockwave, while the second is the 'actual' explosion and its
byproducts being shot up into the air. Any physicists out there care to set me
straight?

~~~
lm28469
> I vaguely recall the first is mostly water vapor that suddenly condenses out
> of the air because of the massive shockwave, while the second is the
> 'actual' explosion and its byproducts being shot up into the air.

Not a physicist but yeah, that's it.

------
lma21
I have family and friends living in Lebanon. The explosion destroyed the
windows of most homes in Beirut. Apartments of my family, friends, and
colleagues have been shattered. Even the ones living dozens of kilometers away
from Beirut. It's horrible, what pure incompetence can do to a people already
living in poverty and under the covid-stress. I hope something good comes out
of this...

~~~
mekster
What good do you expect out of this mess? Like, some other location fixed
their storage strategy to avoid same fate?

~~~
lma21
Change the whole governmental bodies. Build a new constitution. Hold new
elections. Create a government that acts and builds, not one that talks and
promises. Something that can lift this poor, small, desperate country out of
its misery. I'm hoping for such changes...

~~~
WaxedLekku
Tear down and build a new state? Sounds like the recipe for a war

------
bluenose69
The following is a citation for the seminal paper on this matter. G. I. Taylor
was a god of fluid mechanics, and quite a lot of his work is available online
for free.

Taylor, Geoffrey. “The Formation of a Blast Wave by a Very Intense Explosion.
- II. The Atomic Explosion of 1945.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of
London. Series A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences 201, no. 1065 (March 22,
1950): 175.
[https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.1950.0050](https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.1950.0050)

------
KMag
Note that the distinctive orange color is probably a large volume of nitrogen
dioxide at pretty high concentration. If it was an ammonium nitrate explosion,
the orange cloud supports the idea it was accidental. The explosion would have
been easier to set off and more powerful had there been a fuel (or more fuel)
mixed with the ammonium nitrate.

~~~
IAmGraydon
Why do you think that the release of NO2 makes it an accident? Nitrate based
high explosives only release NO2 during an actual high-order detonation.
Ammonium nitrate does this with or without sensitizers such as fuel oil.

~~~
jandrewrogers
This is definitely not the case. NO2 release is characteristic of spontaneous
decomposition of nitrates, which can happen under a wide variety of conditions
that have nothing to do with detonation. I’ve had the misfortune of seeing
this happen once in a lab, due to a rookie mistake. It usually is the
harbinger of a runaway exothermic reaction. There is nothing surprising here
if ammonium nitrate is the primary suspect.

In the specific case of bulk ammonium nitrate, it has a low melting point
(relative to a fire) and it starts to become quite unstable in that phase. The
low risk of AN is premised on it being stored in a relatively clean, non-
reactive environment.

Fuel oil generally isn’t considered a sensitizer for AN, you still need a
booster, it compensates for the oxygen richness which improves efficiency.
There are a bunch of nitrogen organics and metals, which I won’t list here,
that will sensitize AN quite effectively but those aren’t implicated here.

Most fires with AN are caused by its reactivity. It will readily combine with
other chemicals in the environment to produce compounds that are far more
unstable than AN. These byproducts often act as the ignition point that
ultimately causes the AN to detonate.

------
Leherenn
A comparable explosion happened in Toulouse, France, in 2001, estimated at
20-40 tons of TNT.

It was also some nitrate storage that blew up. Similar end result, pretty much
everything window in the city was blown away, and most of the injuries were
caused by broken glass.

~~~
cm2187
Was watching some reporting from that explosion, and it starts with teachers
being on strike when the explosion occurred. So French...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TioM7N0y8Co](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TioM7N0y8Co)

------
emeraldd
When they started talking about ammonium nitrate, my first thought was of
this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Fertilizer_Company_explos...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Fertilizer_Company_explosion)

and the possibility of a shipment of fertilizer somehow getting caught in a
fire ...

~~~
coldcode
When I first saw the initial video, I immediately assumed a nitrate explosion.
A bomb that large would be too hard to place or even deliver (if a plane), and
fireworks would not explode with a such a perfect shockwave. The red color of
the original smoke is rather telling as well and that it occurred in a
dockyard.

------
animal_spirits
I am awestruck. What an awful event. I will be keeping up to date with this
and looking for ways I can help... All I know to do right now is pray for
those that have suffered from this. My breath has been taken away...

------
credit_guy
Wikipedia's page of the largest non-nuclear explosions [1] was already updated
and states "It generated a shock-waves equivalent to 13 tonnes TNT". Not sure
who made this estimation and how, but various photos on that page can give you
an idea what a large explosion looks like. For example take a look at the
Yamato explosion [2]. Yamato was a 70000 ton Japanese battleship; the large
explosion was due to its magazines being hit by bombs (this happened quite
frequently when battleships were hit as they were fundamentally stacks and
stacks of gun ammunition surrounded by a hull); it's likely that Yamato was
carrying a few thousand tons of explosives, so that's how you get a few kt TNT
non-nuclear explosion. Now in that photo you can see for reference another
ship in the lower left. It looks quite puny. So, it appears to me the Yamato
mushroom cloud was much, much bigger than today's mushroom cloud in Beirut.

Edit: The wikipedia page was updated and now states 1kt TNT.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_artificial_non-
nuclear...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_artificial_non-
nuclear_explosions)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_artificial_non-
nuclear...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_artificial_non-
nuclear_explosions#/media/File:Explosion_of_the_Japanese_battleship_Yamato,_on_7_April_1945_\(NH_62582\).jpg)

~~~
Aerroon
The ship you can see in the bottom left of the Yamato's explosion (link [2])
is a Japanese destroyer. I'm not sure which ship it is specifically, but she
is likely 100-130 meters in length (those were the only ones around at the
time Yamato sank). And she's closer than the actual cloud.

~~~
justinclift
On that note, I wonder how the ships / watercraft in the area handled it.
Overturned/sunk/? :(

~~~
jcranmer
Naval ships are generally spaced at about "I can see the nearest ship to me in
my binoculars"-distances.

To give a sense of scale, the USS Washington firing on the IJN Kirishima in
the Second Battle of Guadalcanal is reckoned as one of the _shortest-range_
engagements in WWII... at about 5km.

That said, the remaining ships in the area were the surviving Japanese
destroyers, and destroyers closing in closer to ships would not be unusual.
Furthermore, the Yamato was in the process of abandoning ship at this point,
and the destroyers may have been closing in to help fight fires or rescue
survivors. I doubt they'd be closer than about a km from the ship at the time
of the explosion, and none of the Japanese ships (so far as I'm aware)
reported any effect from the explosion. Some planes (up to 7) were lost in the
fireball, though.

~~~
jwilliamson
Some WW2 battles were fought at significantly shorter ranges than that. Just
in the Malta campaign, at Cape Passero the Italians closed to around 1700m
before opening fire. In the attack on the Tarigo convoy, the British closed to
1800m before opening fire and approached as close as 50m to the Italian ships.

~~~
forgot_account
Another good example is the Battle of Cape Matapan where British battleships
obliterated Italian cruisers at 3500m, at night, in a few minutes.

------
jonplackett
This is insane, this is tactical nuclear weapon size explosion right? I think
they start at under 1kt up to about 10kt

(not saying it is one, just for comparison of how insanely massive this
explosion is)

------
ashtonkem
This seems unlikely.

Officially, they had 2750 tones of ammonium nitrate on that dock. Even if it
were properly mixed with fuel oil to make ANFO, that would give you 2200 tones
of tnt equivalent. It is quite unlikely that it was mixed to the perfect
proportions, so we’d expect actual yield to be below theoretical max

So unless if something else was involved (or the official amount of ammonium
nitrate was wrong) I would expect the final blast to be under 2kt.

~~~
totalZero
There are plenty of petroleum distillates in a dockyard. Diesel, bunker fuel,
kerosene, gasoline....not to mention other flammable hydrocarbons and powders.
You're assuming an 80% ratio ANFO/TNT but you're neglecting the mass of the
FO, as well as the possibility of other oxidizers being stored near the blast
site. I guess you could make some assumptions about the fuel based on
detonation velocity as observed on video.

~~~
ashtonkem
Properly mixed ANFO doesn't contain a huge amount of FO; ideally it's supposed
to be 6% by mass. Good enough for a quick HN estimate, although I'd hope an
actual after action report does better. A better calculation is that 2750
tonnes of AN would yield 2864 tonnes of ANFO, which is 2,291 tonnes of TNT
equivalent.

However, we know that the explosion wasn't stoichiometrically perfect, because
of the brown NO2 clouds that were hanging over Beirut. Properly mixed ANFO
should release only H2O, CO2, and N2. So we know that there was some level of
explosive power that wasn't fully consumed. This is why I put the ANFO yield
as the absolute theoretical max, I think in reality the actual yield was much
much lower.

Some other people have speculated that the fireworks like mini explosions
between the first and second big explosions was actually ammonium nitrate
decomposing, which would imply that this was a pure ammonium nitrate explosion
and not one accelerated by some sort of oil or other fuel. If that's true,
various manufacturers give the AN to TNT equivalent of poorly handled AN at
15-40% of TNT, giving a yield somewhere in the 412-1,100 tonne range.

~~~
totalZero
> ideally it's supposed to be 6% by mass. Correct, but when you're talking
> about a difference of 1kt on a 3kt estimate, 6% is non-negligible IMO.

> we know that there was some level of explosive power that wasn't fully
> consumed.

Agreed, if there were no other oxidizers nearby then it's clear based on the
reddish brown color of the smoke cloud that the AN was not consumed.

------
contravariant
Unless I'm missing something they forgot to account for the fact that
dimensional analysis will only give you a result up to a constant.

This should be somewhat obvious as otherwise you'd get a different result with
different units (and no SI units won't save you here, those just work for
several _common_ equations in physics not ones you came up with yourself).

~~~
johnbcoughlin
it's not really dimensional analysis. the same methodology was used to
estimate the Trinity blast.

~~~
contravariant
It is dimensional analysis provided you can justify that the constant should
approximately be 1. This is what G. I. Taylor did for the fireball of the
trinity test. And apparently it does end up being close to 1.

I do worry about the accuracy of this a bit, but looks like it could in theory
work.

------
guerrilla
> The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. Officials linked the
> explosion to some 2,700 tonnes of confiscated ammonium nitrate that were
> being stored in a warehouse at the port for six years.

[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/huge-explosion-
rocks-...](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/huge-explosion-rocks-
lebanon-capital-beirut-live-updates-200804163620414.html)

------
aunetx
This reminds me a lot about AZF, a chemical explosion that happened in
Toulouse, France back in 2001 [1]... And it was hundred of tons of ammonium
nitrate here too.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toulouse_chemical_factory_expl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toulouse_chemical_factory_explosion)

------
worldpeacenow
Ammonium nitrate is 1.35 less potent than TNT. So this was just over 2,000
tons of TNT blast. The first nuclear bomb ever dropped was 15,000 tons of TNT
of force. So this was 13.3% of the force of what Hiroshima experienced. About
70,000 people died from Hiroshima. So 13.3% of Hiroshima force is still
devastating. It's probably not going to be nearly as bad as 13.3% of 70,000
deaths because Hiroshima was more densely packed and there wasn't the
electromagnetic pulse wave that vaporizes people and long lingering radiation
associated with a nuclear bomb. ... Still what happened in Beirut is immensely
devastating.

~~~
DreamScatter
An electromagnetic pulse doesn't vaporize people, it mainly affects
electronics.

------
sytelus
Just in case people are wondering reason this explosion: there was 2,750
tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored without safety measures in a warehouse that
went off.

------
totalZero
I wonder if the shape of the storage receptacle and the geometry of
surrounding buildings could have resulted in an elliptical fireball shape. If
so, that could be one drawback of this method. Depending on viewing angle, you
could overestimate or underestimate the R figure versus a same-energy
spherical fireball.

------
RantyDave
No. Because that would imply that ammonium nitrate has a higher specific
energy than TNT. Which it doesn't.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density_Extended_Refere...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density_Extended_Reference_Table)

------
agumonkey
What are the pollution consequences of this (if any) ?

~~~
est31
Dust pollution has turned out to be quite significant in the 9/11 aftermath,
causing cancer in thousands of people.

> As of August 2013, medical authorities concluded that 1,140 people who
> worked, lived, or studied in Lower Manhattan at the time of the attack have
> been diagnosed with cancer as a result of "exposure to toxins at Ground
> Zero". It has been reported that over 1,400 9/11 rescue workers who
> responded to the scene in the days and months after the attacks have since
> died.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11_attacks)

The pictures of Beirut seemed quite dusty, reminiscent of the 9/11 pictures.

Beirut 2020: [https://streamable.com/22e152](https://streamable.com/22e152)

NYC 2001: [https://i.imgur.com/jfLUAiK.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/jfLUAiK.jpeg)

~~~
agumonkey
good point but beirut is not the same dust, for better or worse

------
golemiprague
what was the white ball during the explosion? it looks like some liquid
spraying up in the shape of a ball, was it sea water? other liquid? or was it
just looking to me like a liquid but actually was gas of something?

~~~
a_e_k
A Wilson cloud:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_cloud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_cloud)

------
SDJ100
According to my estimate the Beirut explosion was about one quarter the
explosive force of the Hiroshima bomb. Does anyone concur with this?

------
SDJ100
I estimate the Beirut explosion was one quarter the explosive force of the
Hiroshima bomb. Does anyone concur?

------
privateuser1981
At max 0.2K TNT

~~~
AnimalMuppet
What is your evidence or logic for claiming so? Just a bare claim is not very
convincing.

~~~
privateuser1981
This was the aftermath of 15 kilotons:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Hiroshim...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Hiroshima_aftermath.jpg)

Despite 2750T of ammonium nitrate the yield of explosion was around 0.2-0.3KT
TNT

------
shadowprofile77
Nitpicking here maybe but this does not look like a 3 kiloton blast to me.
Neither the size of the core explosion or the apparent shock wave damage
correspond to that magnitude from a surface blast. Guessing here but I'd say
closer to 2 kilotons at most.

Amazingly, the massive, hollow grain silo right next to the detonation itself
remained standing afterwards.

~~~
flywheel
Amazing how nerds can be so focused on if it was 1 kiloton, 2 kilotons, or 3
kilotons - and they are arguing about it like it really matters.

~~~
totalZero
A few hours before you made this comment, you made a nit-picky objection on a
different HN post about Intel i5 versus Intel i7. Someone responded to you
saying that i5 and i7 are marketing terms that most consumers interpret as an
indicator of performance. You replied, "I guess this isn't really 'hacker
news' then, because I would expect just about any 'hacker' would know the
difference."

Then, you came to this HN post and described a bunch of people as "nerds" for
trying to interpret the magnitude of the blast by observing what was captured
on video.

The contrast between these two simultaneously held attitudes is so bizarre
that I am chuckling to myself as I try to grasp your underlying thought
process.

(You could easily have switched your approach to the two threads, criticizing
the Intel i5-vs-i7 nerds while doing some napkin math to come up with your own
estimate of the Beirut explosion in TNT terms.)

------
jungletime
Lebanon has its share of enemies, internal and external. All it would take is
a mavic inspire drone to fly over and drop the initial explosive.

Trump said "it looks like a terrible attack" at his news conference. Which is
probably what his intelligence officers/advisors speculated when they briefed
him.

~~~
Chris2048
> Which is probably what his intelligence officers/advisors speculated when
> they briefed him

because Trump would never go off-script and speculate on his own?..

~~~
jungletime
That's possible for sure. But why do you assume that Trump made it up?

Have you ever gone to hairdresser, asked for a haircut, and the hairdresser
only took one snip, and asked for money?

No, it doesn't happen. You know why, because people tend to justify their
jobs.

I'm betting at least one of his Intel officers, would be suspicious of almost
nuclear level yield blast.

------
aaron695
The media doesn't seem to understand how big this is yet in short and long
term damage and loss of life. I guess that doesn't matter? They are more for
political bickering now?

Running theory Ammonium Nitrate stored at port for many years -

[https://mobile.twitter.com/HachemYassin/status/1290702640930...](https://mobile.twitter.com/HachemYassin/status/1290702640930791424)

[Edit] Skipping the loss of grain and produce in port and the actual port in a
country on the brink during a pandemic this isn't just 50 dead short term
[https://mobile.twitter.com/asharfouch/status/129071410457584...](https://mobile.twitter.com/asharfouch/status/1290714104575848448)

~~~
gamblor956
This story is on the front page of every major news site in the world right
now.

They're not providing an "in-depth analysis" because there aren't yet
sufficient facts to analyze. Even the authorities don't yet know what actually
exploded, or what caused the explosion, or the number of dead, or the number
of wounded, or the number of missing.

Get off your high horse.

~~~
aaron695
> Get off your high horse.

President Trump(And other world leaders) commented about 3 hours ago on this
issue.

So the fact it's now made a headline is I guess your horse not mine.

And authorities do know what exploded, and have made statements. The initial
fire is still uncertain.

This story was also on HN earlier and Flagged, because of complicated reasons,
but it still probably shouldn't have been.

~~~
DonHopkins
President(*) Trump just suggested the explosion was an attack. Do you believe
his "authority" and "credibility" in the matter, over the "fake news" media?

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-05/donald-trump-
suggests...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-05/donald-trump-suggests-
beirut-explosion-was-an-attack/12525738)

~~~
me_me_me
+1 I would bet my hand that Trump wouldn't be able to roughly point on the map
where Lebanon is. But for sure he is the expert on their internal politics and
struggles.

I am surprised anyone on HK is considering him as source of any info (unless a
bot).

------
aaron695
I should just pre-flag this comment, so feel free.

But Hezbollah use Ammonium Nitrate and could use the other small explosives
stored near by.

I think under current rules being actioned if there was intel people were
stealing from the factory it would be considered a legitimate target.

The question would be, would the analysis of intel be good enough to know
exactly what was stored there and if it is clearly not an appropriate target.
And I think their analysis would suck.

If you want a source, the President of the United States said it was an
attack. So we either believe official statements or we should learn to think
for ourselves.

Equally arson or a fire due to lack of security and maintenance due to
coronavirus stress.

~~~
fanatic2pope
> the President of the United States said it was an attack

Meaningless. If Trump said the sky was blue, you'd be well advised to go
outside and make sure.

~~~
fanatic2pope
Surprise! I was right.

[https://www.foxnews.com/politics/defense-secretary-esper-
con...](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/defense-secretary-esper-contradicts-
trump-beirut-accident)

