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Beirut

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RayDunzl

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1596644494695.png
 

Beershaun

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:eek::(
 

A Surfer

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Absolutely terrible. I can't imagine having this happen. Just horrible to even contemplate. If I was religious I would send prayers but all that I have to offer are my deepest sympathies and best wishes to everyone effected by this preventable tragedy.
 

jhaider

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If there are any members here affected by this tragedy, my deepest condolences and please let us know the best way to help from an on-the-ground perspective. There are lots of aid organizations, but from here it's hard to know which ones are most effective on the ground.

Hopefully this tragedy will be a wake-up call all over the world. Dangerous materials are stored unsafely everywhere in the world, sometimes with consequences that can be bad in their own right, if not destructive on this scale. For example, a few years ago substances left under an overpass caught fire melted the concrete bridge, severing one of the two major arteries of Atlanta for months.
 

Doodski

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Reminds me of the 1917 Halifax Canada explosion of a WW1 supply ship loaded with (equivalent of 2.9 kilotons of TNT) high explosives that collided with another ship and exploded. It obliterated part of the city. Approximately 2,000 people were killed by the blast, debris, fires, or collapsed buildings, and an estimated 9,000 were injured. The scattered fragments of the ship Mont-Blanc where spread around for kilometres and a tsumami was created that caused widespread damage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion
 
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RayDunzl

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Relative Effectiveness factor:

The relative effectiveness factor (RE factor) relates an explosive's demolition power to that of TNT, in units of the TNT equivalent/kg (TNTe/kg). The RE factor is the relative mass of TNT to which an explosive is equivalent: The greater the RE, the more powerful the explosive.

Ammonium Nitrate gets a 0.42 rating.

0.42 x 2700 tons = 1134 tons TNT equivalent
 

Matias

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RayDunzl

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https://www.atomicarchive.com/science/effects/overpressure.html

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"At 40 percent the power of TNT, the detonation of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate could produce 1 pound per square inch of overpressure — defined as the pressure caused by a shock wave over and above normal atmospheric pressure — as far as 6,600 feet away. The same explosion would produce 27 p.s.i. at a distance of 793 feet — enough to flatten most buildings, and kill people either through direct trauma or by being struck by debris."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/world/middleeast/beirut-lebanon-explosion.html
 
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RayDunzl

RayDunzl

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Fireworks warehouse next to the Ammonium Nitrate warehouse.

You can see and hear some of that in the beginning of this video:

Also at 2:00


 

Racheski

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If there is any silver lining to this, I'm glad a good portion of the blast and resulting shockwave were over water instead of populated areas.
 

Blumlein 88

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Fireworks warehouse next to the Ammonium Nitrate warehouse.

You can see and hear some of that in the beginning of this video:

Also at 2:00


Best view is around the 2 minute mark it looks like. You see the fire at the fireworks warehouse, finally that warehouse explodes and when that explosion engulfs the ammonia nitrate warehouse you then see the big explosion shockwave.
 
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