Anyone seen the explosion footage from Beirut

[Hobnobswantshernameback]

Just jaw dropping
The sheer force
Horrific
When you see the footage for the second time the horror at what you know is coming
Those poor people

I can’t believe the sheer magnitude of it.

@JacobReesMogadishu

Some security person says it happened in an area where explosives were stored.

From the video there is a building on fire before the big explosion. So maybe just an accident? Building catches fire, there’s some sort of military munitions store and it goes up like a bomb?

That's the story I heard.

Firecrackers were stored in a building near where the fire started.

It is horrific though. Terrifying for anyone nearby.

@FinnyStory
There have been protests and what the media would describe as “unrest” quite recently (my sense of time isn’t very good at the moment - certainly in the last year). Plus the country is struggling economically - the currency has devalued by something like 60%.

No idea what caused such a terrible tragedy but it reminded me of the 2015 explosion in Tianjin, China.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015Tianjinn_explosions

I wonder if some of the same substances could have been involved?

Recent news from Lebanon (June 2020):
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-53020014?fbclid=IwAR0f1gXY5xkfCJBeyGsRURl2WTwF9_GKLT_dSrfqZgf266bWZWSAKbMA1_0

The unrest is to do with a trial currently from an incident in 2015 which changed leaders. Sorry it's vague but I didn't take in the details (dyslexic)

I read it is possibly a ammonium nitrite explosion.
It is jaw dropping.

@Emeraldshamrock

I read it is possibly a ammonium nitrite explosion. It is jaw dropping.

I saw the same.

Unbelievable explosion, those poor people.

Quite plausible that it was stored fireworks that went up first, the percussion from some of those going up stored in a confined space could well be enough to supply the energy to set off stored explosives or fertiliser. Absolutely not uncommon, particularly in less well regulated parts of the world to have stuff stored incorrectly or in excessive quantities. Similar happened in Texas just a couple of years ago at an ammonium
nitrate plant, plus as a pp said there was Tianjin.

Terrible event, don't have the gut feeling that it's any more than a terrible industrial accident.

I was in the city centre in Manchester when the IRA bomb went off in 1996 and that was, if I recall rightly, a van full of ammonium nitrate. So if a van full can do that amount of damage, a whole warehouse full would be devastating. Its absolutely horrific. Those poor people.

The Times is reporting that it was substances that had been confiscated years ago - but no one had dealt with them!

Seen there is more than 3k injured :(

It seems it could be stored ammonium nitrate fertiliser which is transported in thousands of tons by ships. The red-brown gas coming off is certainly nitrogen dioxide which is toxic, and released when nitrates decompose.
Definitely not nuclear!

It’s sodium nitrate that was confiscated months ago from a ship and was being stored in the warehouse at the port.

It does look like a nuclear explosion, obviously it’s not, but my first thought when I saw it was that it looked like a nuclear bomb. There was even a mushroom cloud right afterwards.

Apparently it was felt 150 miles away in Cyprus.

BBC > Lebanon's Prime Minsiter Hassan Diab has said
This is what the pm has said as per bbc "It is unacceptable that a shipment of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate has been present for six years in a warehouse, without taking preventive measures and endangering the safety of citizens".

It's awful, such a huge explosion. I've only seen the footage from a distance, but it spreads over such a large area 😪

I feel so sorry for the poor people that live there. I got tears in my eyes watching it, thinking of all the innocent civilians just going about their normal business. The pain they will be suffering now. It’s heartbreaking.

I hold the injured can get pain relief and comfortable quickly with all that’s happening with covid.

The poor people that have lost loved ones.

The video is shocking. Those poor, poor people and the emergency services having to respond to it

This is what 2200 tons of ammonium nitrite did in 1947, when there was a fire near where it was stored:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster

The death toll from this is going to be utterly horrific.

Devastating, it did look like a nuclear bomb had gone off !

Just horrific for a city already on its knees economically. The images look like an apocalyptical computer game.

Add to the dreadful loss of life and injury the inevitable rise of Covid as many people will be living in temporary accommodation for the foreseeable.

So very sad.

@GlacindaTheTroll wow, I had never heard of this accident before now. Reading the details it does sound like exactly what happened here, down to the colour of the preceding smoke and everything.

Devastating.