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Similar in size to the Halifax explosion, then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion
just in case you don't end up seeing that part of the post from other people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONsmJAyFAAw
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.
Tianjin was definitely bigger, Beirut has people surviving that were a couple hundred m away. That didn't happen in the former: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkDtMl5Ec7k
Similar in size to the Halifax explosion, then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion
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Trump is saying that military intelligence indicates that it's a bomb: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tPvH-CqH7Q8 Edit: why am I being downvoted. I am not agreeing with him or saying he is right. Just stating what was said. It seems noteworthy that the president of the US commented on it regardless of accuracy or trustworthiness.
Why is Trump used as a source on HN? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that man say something that was useful or true. I’m not American, mind you, so I’m certainly biased because he’s mainly in our media when he does something stupid, but everything I have ever heard him say about Europe has been so far from the truth that it’s hard to take his word on anything.
@quantian1 correctly determined that this was an ammonium nitrate blast by analyzing the footage: 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…
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 Though on the other hand, the number of incidents and deaths aren't that high considerin…
Let's outlaw cars and kitchen knives as well.
Oh and... guns? Outlaw guns in America? :) They can be dangerous too.
@quantian1 correctly determined that this was an ammonium nitrate blast by analyzing the footage: 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Though on the other hand, the number of incidents and deaths aren't that high considerin…
> I was convinced this stuff should be outlawed for most uses pretty fast. Let's outlaw cars and kitchen knives as well. Oh and... guns? Outlaw guns in America? :) They can be dangerous too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
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.
It’s not the most stable stuff, but with wet nitrate you’ll usually just get a fierce fire, not a detonation - but if a percussive shell from the fireworks landed in it and then detonated, that would be enough to make it go bang.