What are the pollution consequences of this (if any) ?
Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT
161–170 of 255 posts
Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT
#162you're being downvoted because hn is filled with silicon valley cucks and orange man bad
Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
The natural heat was the killer. IF twitter was right the fire started from sparks from a welding on a door. The AN must have already been decomposing in the heat and under weight just waiting. I wonder how often this storage facility was at a critical point like this. Like how many hot days. How often before this. It makes you think about all the other risks sitting out there just waiting for a small spark.
There was also fireworks going of just before the blast. Storing 2750 tons of AN next to a fireworks cache seems cartoonishly stupid. https://twitter.com/ConflictsW/status/1290681902781861888?s=...
I've been told that it was ammunition, not fireworks.
Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT
#164Nitpicking here maybe but this does not look like a 3 kiloton blast to me. Neither the size of the core explosion or the apparent shock wave damage correspond to that magnitude from a surface blast. Guessing here but I'd say closer to 2 kilotons at most. Amazingly, the massive, hollow grain silo right next to the detonation itself remained standing afterwards.
I don't understand why i'm being downvoted or why there's anything wrong with analytical speculation of this type, even about a tragedy.
If anything, this very site and its comments are loaded with exactly that kind of commentary, done mostly in good spirit and tolerance for those who do it. No, i'm not an explosives expert or professional with detailed knowledge of blast yields, but like many of you, I have something of a strong curiosity in a topic irrelevant to my professional occupation. So, based on educated guesstimating, I decided to share a polite opinion about it, like so many others regularly do on HN. Chill.
Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT
#165Nitpicking here maybe but this does not look like a 3 kiloton blast to me. Neither the size of the core explosion or the apparent shock wave damage correspond to that magnitude from a surface blast. Guessing here but I'd say closer to 2 kilotons at most. Amazingly, the massive, hollow grain silo right next to the detonation itself remained standing afterwards.
Amazing how nerds can be so focused on if it was 1 kiloton, 2 kilotons, or 3 kilotons - and they are arguing about it like it really matters.
This whole thread is full of debate about diverse details about this event and things related to it, so yeah, it's perfectly normal to debate claims like a headline's subject, Nobody thinks it literally matters too much, They do it out of intellectual curiosity.. It's not just a "nerd" thing.
Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT
#166The amount of material must have been ridiculous to store in such a place. The blast is staggering in size, almost like the Tianjin explosion a few years ago. Collected videos: Angle #1 https://streamable.com/xmmoa7 Angle #2 https://streamable.com/nscx9m Angle #3 https://streamable.com/zbjj5f Angle #4 https://streamable.com/saoafz Angle #5 https://streamable.com/4ga1vb Angle #6 https://streamable.com/lmivb2 Angle #7…
> The amount of material must have been ridiculous to store in such a place.
This is a photo supposedly of the warehouse: https://imgbb.com/r4Q64xc
Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT
#167The amount of material must have been ridiculous to store in such a place. The blast is staggering in size, almost like the Tianjin explosion a few years ago. Collected videos: Angle #1 https://streamable.com/xmmoa7 Angle #2 https://streamable.com/nscx9m Angle #3 https://streamable.com/zbjj5f Angle #4 https://streamable.com/saoafz Angle #5 https://streamable.com/4ga1vb Angle #6 https://streamable.com/lmivb2 Angle #7…
Roughly twice the amount exploded compared to Tianjin, actually. 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate compared to 800 tonnes of ammonium nitrates and 600 tonnes of potassium nitrate in Tianjin.
So yes, quite ridiculous.
Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT
#168Earlier 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…
Ammonium nitrate is essential as a fertilizer. There are no cost effective alternatives so we'll have to just accept the risk.
Well, we can still mitigate the risk quite a bit. We don't have to store 2750 tonnes of it, all in one place, for 7 years. That is asking for trouble.
Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Don't forget cars, they kill an average of 40k people a year since the 50s in the US.
I didn't! They were the first in my 'to outlaw' list :)
Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT
#170Al Jazeera is reporting that according to the president in Lebanon, it was almost three thousand tons of ammonium nitrate that blew up https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/huge-explosion-rocks-... .
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
In Tianjin there was also 600 tonnes of Potassium Nitrate that exploded in addition to the ammonium nitrate, so to compare them you'd need to count that as well.