That would be about 28 railcars of fertilizer if I remember right.
One of the videos I saw had sound.
There was a fire and it sounded like small arms rounds cooking off.
They had 3000 tons of fertilizer sitting in a warehouse for six years?
Guess they were having bumper crops without it.
The reason the Bridge at Remagen survived the backup explosion when the primary one failed to work was they didn’t have military grade explosives and were forced to use commercial explosives.
I have a friend whose daughter and son in law live in Cyprus. They heard the explosion from the beach in Cyprus.
“This warehouse has gone 2,191 days without an accident”. ((oh crap))
Should have stored it in the Bekka Valley instead.
On April 16, 1947, a large steel ship filled with a similar amount of ammonium nitrate exploded in Galveston TX. The huge explosion literally blew the ship to bits. It threw gigantic pieces of steel so high, they didn’t rain down for a long minute. The ship’s 1.5 ton anchor landed a mile and half away. More than 500 people were killed and the explosion blew down many buildings.
Ammonia Nitrate - like black powder - is technically a non-explosive as it burns instead of explodes. However, if confined, it can very much act like an explosive due to it’s oxidizing nature. Witness the Texas City disaster where 2,200 tons went up.
“”””unacceptable that a shipment of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate has been present for six years in a warehous””””
How much was originally there? How much has Hezbollah already used in their bomb makeing?
USGS measured 3.3
*
A little of the fog of war perhaps.
It may more likely have been sodium nitrate (as other reports indicated: https://www.wsj.com/articles/lebanon-struck-by-blast-at-beirut-port-11596556605 ).
That is rocket propellant, and Hizbollah is in the business of building their own - at the direction of their bosses in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Unmixed ammonium nitrate is not as explosive -its fertilizer. It can be mixed with diesel fuel oil to make an improvised explosive (ANFO), but Sodium Nitrate is more of a military grade substance. It was a Hizbollah facility, and there were a series of secondary detonation in the fire, before the big one went off - possibly other munitions or components.
Fireworks just sounds like a BS cover story, as does ammonium nitrate - Hizbollah is trying to avoid blame for having a mountain of high explosives downtown, and mishandling them.
I sailed on a USN frigate for four years that weighed 4,500 tons. So this amount ammonium nitrate was the size in weight of a small warship .
That’ll leave a hole!
The ammonium nitrate that exploded has been sitting there since 2013!
Good grief!
https://twitter.com/LalehKhalili/status/1290762410308050947
That’s the kind of tonnage stored only in underground bunkers.
Its one of the ingrediants for fertilizer.
Recent news is that the ammonia nitrate was seized from Russian ships that were transporting it to Gaza and Syria for use by the Islamofasists for IEDs etc. It was seized.
We will likely never know whether it was an accident, or whether it was a strategic act of destruction to prevent its being distributed across the Middle East.
Like President Trump, I do not believe it was accidental. Hezbollah took a huge hit. The Beirut authorities should not have been allowing Hezbollah to operate in the Port area of Beirut.
Carlos Osweda’s Twitter feed is the best explanation of what happened and why...it is a great thing for war prevention.
Beirut blast probe points to bungled storage of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate