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Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

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Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#41

Post by aaron695 »

I should just pre-flag this comment, so feel free.

But Hezbollah use Ammonium Nitrate and could use the other small explosives stored near by.

I think under current rules being actioned if there was intel people were stealing from the factory it would be considered a legitimate target.

The question would be, would the analysis of intel be good enough to know exactly what was stored there and if it is clearly not an appropriate target. And I think their analysis would suck.

If you want a source, the President of the United States said it was an attack. So we either believe official statements or we should learn to think for ourselves.

Equally arson or a fire due to lack of security and maintenance due to coronavirus stress.

Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#42

Post by shadowprofile77 »

Nitpicking 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.

Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#43

Post by dfee »

shadowprofile77 wrote: post #42

Nitpicking 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.

Uh, who are you? I don’t have the eye for the difference between 2 and 3 kiloton blasts. Maybe I’m the exception to the rule, but I don’t think so.

Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#44

Post by kgm »

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 making the point that the explosiveness of ammonium nitrate can vary significantly depending on how it is stored. 2750 tons of AN at 20% efficiency gives 550 tons TNT.

https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/12907955327014256...

This range is also apparently consistent with the explosion registering as a 3.5 seismic magnitude.

https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/12907348507695267...

There are still a great many unknowns, and none of this should be mistaken for the real analysis which will come later, but these disparate sources of information all seem to agree with each other, to a first approximation.

Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#45

Post by rsynnott »

aaron695 wrote: post #41

I should just pre-flag this comment, so feel free. But Hezbollah use Ammonium Nitrate and could use the other small explosives stored near by. I think under current rules being actioned if there was intel people were stealing from the factory it would be considered a legitimate target. The question would be, would the analysis of intel be good enough to know exactly what was stored there and if it is clearly not an a…

> So we either believe official statements

The closest to an official statement (US dept of defence officials to media) is that it is not thought to be an attack, Donald’s ex-cathedra ramblings notwithstanding.

Nasty accidents at fertiliser plants are unfortunately somewhat common; they dominate the list of largest non-nuclear explosions.

Also, why would you steal fertiliser from a fertiliser factory? Traditionally, I’m fairly sure people just BUY it if they want to make a bomb.

Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#46

Post by fanatic2pope »

aaron695 wrote: post #41

I should just pre-flag this comment, so feel free. But Hezbollah use Ammonium Nitrate and could use the other small explosives stored near by. I think under current rules being actioned if there was intel people were stealing from the factory it would be considered a legitimate target. The question would be, would the analysis of intel be good enough to know exactly what was stored there and if it is clearly not an a…

> the President of the United States said it was an attack

Meaningless. If Trump said the sky was blue, you'd be well advised to go outside and make sure.

Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#47

Post by kthxbye123 »

aaron695 wrote: post #28
einarfd wrote: post #11

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-... .

I'd like to know why it initially sounds like fireworks https://twitter.com/HeshmatAlavi/status/1290683991369097216 [camera operator probably would have died in the second blast] Is that what set it off? Or is that what ammonium nitrate sounds like burning?

Just as an FYI, this account is a well known fake persona run by MEK cultists in Albania, not really a great source of info- note that it immediately began boosting a completely unsubstantiated theory that the explosion was caused by a depot of Iranian munitions.

Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#48

Post by vimy »

fanatic2pope wrote: post #46
aaron695 wrote: post #41

I should just pre-flag this comment, so feel free. But Hezbollah use Ammonium Nitrate and could use the other small explosives stored near by. I think under current rules being actioned if there was intel people were stealing from the factory it would be considered a legitimate target. The question would be, would the analysis of intel be good enough to know exactly what was stored there and if it is clearly not an a…

> the President of the United States said it was an attack Meaningless. If Trump said the sky was blue, you'd be well advised to go outside and make sure.

He does have a habit of revealing highly sensitive national security information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYX9nyr7rng

Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#49

Post by justinclift »

Aerroon wrote: post #15
credit_guy wrote: post #10

Wikipedia's page of the largest non-nuclear explosions [1] was already updated and states "It generated a shock-waves equivalent to 13 tonnes TNT". Not sure who made this estimation and how, but various photos on that page can give you an idea what a large explosion looks like. For example take a look at the Yamato explosion [2]. Yamato was a 70000 ton Japanese battleship; the large explosion was due to its magazines…

The ship you can see in the bottom left of the Yamato's explosion (link [2]) is a Japanese destroyer. I'm not sure which ship it is specifically, but she is likely 100-130 meters in length (those were the only ones around at the time Yamato sank). And she's closer than the actual cloud.

On that note, I wonder how the ships / watercraft in the area handled it. Overturned/sunk/? :(

Re: Order of magnitude estimate of Beirut explosion at 3 kilotons of TNT

#50

Post by guerrilla »

> The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. Officials linked the explosion to some 2,700 tonnes of confiscated ammonium nitrate that were being stored in a warehouse at the port for six years.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/huge-explosion-rocks-...

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