191–200 of 255 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If prior to the explosion you were told that all dangerous cargo is stored in dangerous cargo area of the port, would you've thought it is stupid?
I'd expect the "dangerous cargo area" to be a specialised, and somewhat more highly scrutinised area of the port.
I am seeing other analyses that put the size of the explosion at about one tenth of this size. The analysis in this Twitter thread correlates the observed degree of damage with the distance from the explosion. It comes up with an estimated 240 tons TNT-equivalent, though naturally this comes with a considerable margin of error. https://twitter.com/GeorgeWHerbert/status/129071971954515968... This Twitter thread is mak…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If prior to the explosion you were told that all dangerous cargo is stored in dangerous cargo area of the port, would you've thought it is stupid?
I'd expect the "dangerous cargo area" to be a specialised, and somewhat more highly scrutinised area of the port.
Consider this the next time there's discussion about merits of introducing nuclear power globally.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
2000 tonnes is a lot. Two ships loading ammonium nitrate, the Grandcamp and the High Flyer, detonated in Texas City back in 1947. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster It says there was a 15 ft wave out into the Gulf of Mexico that lasted for almost 100 miles. And Texas City is not actually on the Gulf Coast, it is on Galveston Bay about a half hour away from the Gulf shore. And there is only a relatively…
As long as we are bringing up historical explosions, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion in 1917.
Taylor, Geoffrey. “The Formation of a Blast Wave by a Very Intense Explosion. - II. The Atomic Explosion of 1945.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences 201, no. 1065 (March 22, 1950): 175. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.1950.0050
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Wow, and for comparison the viral 2015 Tianjin explosions in total released 28 tonnes of TNT of energy, or 100GJ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Tianjin_explosions notes "336 tons TNT equivalent."
Absolutely terrifying.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Bashing a foreign president is easy but why don't you keep it to the facts?
No, I'm not an American either.
I am seeing other analyses that put the size of the explosion at about one tenth of this size. The analysis in this Twitter thread correlates the observed degree of damage with the distance from the explosion. It comes up with an estimated 240 tons TNT-equivalent, though naturally this comes with a considerable margin of error. https://twitter.com/GeorgeWHerbert/status/129071971954515968... This Twitter thread is mak…
I arrived at 0.25 +/- 0.1 kT before the 2750T figure came out. That's in line with TNT-equivalent efficiency of AN and incomplete reaction due to scattering.
Tragically, this suggests a much higher death toll than currently reported. I am not sure if nukemap factors local population density; fortunately the epicenter was a sparsely populated pier.
(down for me right now, I bet their site is slashdotted/DoS'd by people doing similar) https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/classic/
I have family and friends living in Lebanon. The explosion destroyed the windows of most homes in Beirut. Apartments of my family, friends, and colleagues have been shattered. Even the ones living dozens of kilometers away from Beirut. It's horrible, what pure incompetence can do to a people already living in poverty and under the covid-stress. I hope something good comes out of this...
Al 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