Disaster Fireworks Warehouse Explosion in Beirut - Spoiler: It wasn't Fireworks it was 2,500+ tons of High-Explosive Ammonium Nitrate

Article (Archive)

Beirut, Lebanon (CNN)

A large explosion rocked the Lebanese capital Beirut on Tuesday, damaging buildings and offices around the city.
The source of the explosion was a major fire at a warehouse for firecrackers near the port in Beirut, the state-run National News Agency reported.
A red cloud hung over the city in the wake of the blast as firefighting teams rushed to the scene to try to put out the fire.
Local news reported multiple people were wounded in the incident.
This is a breaking story, more to follow.

Twitter thread: https://mobile.twitter.com/tobiaschneider/status/1290670226934243329

Attaching all of the videos I grabbed from this guys twitter just now as well, here's one of them:

Here are some links to other posts in the thread with more content, you may need to go to the posts directly to see the media:

Spoiler: Two videos

Couple more angles of the explosions, seems everyone in Beirut holds their phone vertically. Buckle up for a very delayed boom in the second video.

Spoiler: Another angle, 'Allahu Ackbar'

Here's a different angle. Notice how the guys recording it say "Allahu Akbar".

EDIT: Direct embed

Spoiler: Slow Motion explosion

Found this slowmo of the explosion in which you can see the fireball and airblast more clearly

Spoiler: Two more videos

(edits: trying to get the spacing of text/video right; links to tweets)
I think this is just a slowed down version of this that I grabbed from twitter (https://twitter.com/saadmohseni/status/1290678176574779395):















Also this for another, closer angle (https://twitter.com/realdavereilly/status/1290690743217119235):

Spoiler: Lebanese Public Security: Not fireworks, High-Explosive Material

View attachment 1495099

And you retards thought putting it all in one place is a good idea?

Spoiler: Sodium Nitrate, PM's Wife and Daughter slightly injured in explosions, ISRAEL UNINVOLVED WE SWEAR

It was explosive sodium nitrate holy shit
View attachment 1495106

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1290698269421600770

Israel denies involvement, Hezbollah says it wasn't their stuff, PM's wife and daughter injured
View attachment 1495109

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1290703557797089281

Spoiler: Aftermath videos/photos

What remains of the dock:

Spoiler: Italy Radiation Spike

There’s a radiation spike picked up near Italy/scicily. Let me try to archive this or take a screenshot

http://archive.md/Nefcf

View attachment 1495413

Spoiler: 2 Minute Compilation Video

I know that there are several vids on here but here's a 2+ minute concatenation of multiple angles and some security camera footage of blast sites.

Spoiler: 2,700 TONS of Ammonia

View attachment 1495562
Translation: Preliminary security information talks about 2,700 tons of confiscated ammonia in the port exploded during the process of welding a small hole to prevent theft

 

[Foltest]

The real question that people should have been asking is who the fuck thought it was a good idea to store 2,500+ TONS of explosive ammonium nitrate near a fucking CITY??

The name is Hezbollah. They storage ammo and other shit among the population.

 

[kcbbq]

Sim Tack is now estimating the blast at 2.2kt. Last death toll I saw was 100. I expected it to climb faster, maybe the location will keep it lower than it could have been. Injured count is big, but when that much glass is shattered people get sliced up.

85 percent of grain silos for Beruit have been destroyed, and they were already having shortages.

 

[deepFriedBaka]

Injured count is big, but when that much glass is shattered people get sliced up.

The amount of people who stood near windows and filmed the explosion instead of getting away wouldn't help reduce the injury count either.

 

[not william stenchever]

I'm reminded of the bridge fire in Atlanta that happened a year or two ago where some smooth brain stacked highly inflammable material under a bridge because they thought inflammable meant it couldn't catch fire.

To be fair I've always thought "inflammable" was a fucking retarded word because it seems to imply flame retardant properties to the layman.

"Highly flammable" vs "inflammable" which would you slap on shit that really shouldn't catch on fire

 

[TexOffender]

Gemmayzeh street in Beirut.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

This seems to be the equivalent of around 1 kiloton of TNT. Estimates of 2-3 kilotons TNT seem too high if there was only 2.7 kilotons of ammonium nitrate.

More videos to grab over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24053732

 

[TexOffender]

 

[not william stenchever]

I hope whoever was near that boom had already balanced the books with god because holy fuck the boom was big enough that it tried to get part of the earth underneath the boom to tip over the grain elevator next door. That was a hell of an explosion

If social media had been around for the Halifax explosion or the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki only then would we have better footage of bigger explosions

May those who died of the result of this rank incompetence rest soundly knowing this was not their fault.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

To be fair I've always thought "inflammable" was a fucking retarded word because it seems to imply flame retardant properties to the layman.

"Highly flammable" vs "inflammable" which would you slap on shit that really shouldn't catch on fire

 

[McMitch]

To be fair I've always thought "inflammable" was a fucking retarded word because it seems to imply flame retardant properties to the layman.

"Highly flammable" vs "inflammable" which would you slap on shit that really shouldn't catch on fire

Flammable means it is easily lit on fire, inflammable means it doesn’t need an ignition source, which is important information to get across quickly.

 

[heathercho]

I hope whoever was near that boom had already balanced the books with god because holy fuck the boom was big enough that it tried to get part of the earth underneath the boom to tip over the grain elevator next door. That was a hell of an explosion

If social media had been around for the Halifax explosion or the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki only then would we have better footage of bigger explosions

May those who died of the result of this rank incompetence rest soundly knowing this was not their fault.

It's strange this happened on the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing....

 

[Friendly_AI]

Russian news site has more info about the origin of explosives:
- Local media initially said it was a fireworks explosion
- Authorities preliminarily claim the cause of explosion to be the welding works at a warehouse, which had been storing 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate (ammonium salpeter) for 6 years. To avoid theft of the substance, harbor authorities decided to close small openings that trespassers could use to access the warehouse. Welding works caused fire, which led to an explosion.
- Ammonium salpeter was confiscated from the ship Rhosus in September, 2014. The cargo was shipped from Batumi to Mozambique. Confiscated cargo was stored at a warehouse on the 12th pier of Beirut harbor and had to be disposed of. Sailors on Rhosus claimed that the owner of the ship was a businessman from Khabarovsk, Igor Grechushkin. They say the owner announced bankruptcy and "actually abandoned the ship". The lawyers representing creditors had 3 arrest warrants for Rhosus, which flew the Moldovian flag.

Archive will follow with later edits.
--
Note: Batumi is a port of an unrecognized South Osetia, which was at the epicenter of war of 2008. Hmm...
EDIT: not South Osetia, but Abkhazia, of course, as @soy_king noted.

 

[CWCissey]

It's strange this happened on the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing....

That's tomorrow.

 

[heathercho]

That's tomorrow.

Today is tomorrow for me.

But regardless, it's still the time period. It's just strange coz the 75th anniversary has been a big deal and now this has bought up a lot of comparisons. Probably only in this part of the world, is it of significance though.

 

[WarJams]

Having pseudo-governments like Hezbollah tossed into the fray doesn’t help either. Does anyone have any information on Hezbollah’s control of the ports?

Beats me, criminal investigations into Hezbollah and their illegal smuggling and money laundering operations were sabotaged by the Obama administration. Ten years of investigations were thrown in the trash, and God knows what Hezbollah might have decided they could get away with when the US turned to look the other way. It's a lost decade in international crime fighting.

To be fair I've always thought "inflammable" was a fucking retarded word because it seems to imply flame retardant properties to the layman.

"Highly flammable" vs "inflammable" which would you slap on shit that really shouldn't catch on fire

Look, if invincible means you cant be harmed then inflammable just means you cant be harmed by fire. It's just simple AHNGLISH!

 

[wokelizard]

I find it heatbreaking that a country that is catastrophically poor and hungry was sitting for years on a massive stockpile of thousands of tonnes of perfectly good fertilizer that could have been distributed and used, if not for corruption and greed. Instead of thousands of farmers being given sacks of free or subsidised fertilizer, to grow and sell and alleviate hunger and suffering, we have this happen. Nobody who matters will be punished, when their president means 'whoever responsible' he obviously doesn't mean himself or any of his cronies. If this isn't a spark for revolution, I lose my faith that humanity will rise up against oppression if pushed to the limit.

 

[Kosher Salt]

Several drone photos of the crater:

 

[soy_king]

Russian news site has more info about the origin of explosives:
- Local media initially said it was a fireworks explosion
- Authorities preliminarily claim the cause of explosion to be the welding works at a warehouse, which had been storing 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate (ammonium salpeter) for 6 years. To avoid theft of the substance, harbor authorities decided to close small openings that trespassers could use to access the warehouse. Welding works caused fire, which led to an explosion.
- Ammonium salpeter was confiscated from the ship Rhosus in September, 2014. The cargo was shipped from Batumi to Mozambique. Confiscated cargo was stored at a warehouse on the 12th pier of Beirut harbor and had to be disposed of. Sailors on Rhosus claimed that the owner of the ship was a businessman from Khabarovsk, Igor Grechushkin. They say the owner announced bankruptcy and "actually abandoned the ship". The lawyers representing creditors had 3 arrest warrants for Rhosus, which flew the Moldovian flag.
View attachment 1497252
Archive will follow with later edits.
--
Note: Batumi is a port of an unrecognized South Osetia, which was at the epicenter of war of 2008. Hmm...

Batumis in Abkhazia my dude. South Ossetia is landlocked. Superficially speaking, theres a lot less conspiracy bs here and more incompetence and inefficient bureaucracy than anything else.

 

[thx1138]

Wow, so, plugging the new data (2.2kt) into nukemap we get...

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=2.2&lat=33.9014459&lng=35.5191851&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&casualties=1&psi=20,5,1&zm=15

That's what 2.2 kt looks like in terms of blast radius. Obviously we can ignore the radiation bands, but still.

 

[Floss_On_Em]

New video showing both explosions (first explosion at 1:15):
https://twitter.com/techjoffrey/status/1291024666430234624
http://archive.is/mkD0d