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I wish I'd seen Nightline but the listing is almost always some marketing hype rather than just saying what the episode is about. <sigh> Pretty horrific from what I've seen, it reminds me of the, "1947, Texas City explosion." A fire aboard the Freighter Grandcamps, carrying 2,300 tons of Ammonium Nitrate, docked in port at Texas City in Galveston Bay exploded killing around 600 people. After Beirut there are lots of videos of the Texas City explosion online. Very similar BADNESS. 

The whole country was already close to collapse so perhaps there just wasn't money to move it? Were I in charge I think making gifts of it to local farmers would've been an option but I suppose keeping it out of the hands of terrorists is a higher priority. How do you dispose of that much AN safely?

We used to buy goat feed at a local feed and seed and they always had maybe 5-10 tons of ammonium nitrate in a hopper. They bought in bulk to sell by the sack, cheaper for small customers and better profit margin for them. The storage t the farm coop warehouse is much larger. I have to wonder what the radius of ground zero would be, it's about 1 1/2 blocks from down town and literally across the street from City Hall.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Apart from the obvious disaster for the people of Beirut (and Lebanon more broadly), one thing that's been bothering me is how many people immediately spout off that this must have been a nuclear explosion, because they've only ever seen explosions produce visible shock waves in old films of atom bomb tests. Dunning-Kruger reaches critical mass.

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   Almost our entire food supply depends on these chemicals and other "stuff".  I drove past the city sewage plant today and the stench was unbelievable.  They are selling the solid by-product as soil amendment to local gardeners and farmers.

 

  Horrific indeed Frosty.  It blew their port and city to pieces.

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John: Not many people realize the spherical condensation wave and mushroom know it'd dependent on size not cause. Want to bet we don't have nuclear weapons with smaller yields? I can understand the mythtakes I also understand how too many folks don't bother to check before they start expounding.

Did you see the signs of implosion? As the condensation sphere lifts off the ground the under edges begin to curl in towards the center. fortunately AN is a low explosive, not fast enough to generate a hard vacuum inside the initial shock envelope. It still looks like an A bomb going off if you're not familiar with these things.

I just have a lay interest and read too much though I do like things that explode. 

Henderson Nevada rocket fuel explosion was almost far enough away from anybody but a few broken windows and neon signs is a small price. That has to be some of the BEST explosion video I've ever seen. First time I saw It on the news I was watching the shock wave blasting across the desert floor towards the guys on the mountain saying, DUCK DUCK DUCK! to myself. 

I'm REALLY glad the closest I've ever been to a surprise explosion was about 9 miles and that was a doozie just not a disaster. You'll be happy to know I just deleted what I know about that story.

Frosty The Lucky.

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19 hours ago, Chris C said:

127,000 tons of the stuff.  Timothy McVeigh only used 4 tons of it when he blew up the Murrah building here in Oklahoma City.  That was some scary explosion in Beirut!!!

I believe the amount of the Beirut explosion was due to 2,750 tons, as reported by all the news reports, not 127,000.  That's still a LOT!!

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Arkie, I apologize.  You are correct.  Would have sworn I knew where the article was that said 127,000 tonnes of Ammonium Nitrate......but I can't find it.    Actually it was 2,750 tonnes, just like you said, which converts to 3,031.356 American tons.  Which is 757.84 times the amount Timothy McVeigh used to blow up our building.  I was sitting inside a concrete block building 10 miles away when it blew and doors rattled, calculators and typewriters (yes, we were still using that kind of ancient equipment) danced around on desks and telephones jumped off the hook.  I sure wouldn't have wanted to experience the bomb in Beirut!  

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I think this "tons", "tonnes" thing has gotten us all messed up. :wacko:  I suppose the difference being that the reports originated in Lebanon, probably using metric tonnes, 2,750.  By the time the Western Hemisphere got the news it became English "tons" instead of Metric "tonnes"......with no conversion.

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Certainly could be, but the reason I rushed to the conversion site was because the article I read indicated "tonnes" and I didn't know how much those weighed.  Oh well, that's what I get for trying to be accurate! :D  Especially when I don't know what I'm talking about.

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English, as in the "long ton" from the CWT system weighing 2240 pounds? (20 hundredweights!) OK *nobody* uses the CWT system anymore except for crazy blacksmiths!

I expect most Americans would say a ton is a ton is a ton and weighs 2000 pounds and never consider that News people all over the world would be using the *metric* ton---even those speaking *English*!

But the exact amount doesn't really matter; after all we know some burned off before the explosion---that red cloud and some may have blown away without blowing up.  It was enough for a really really bad boom.

People can do pretty stupid stuff when "storing" things;  like pool chemicals...

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51 minutes ago, Chris C said:

I don't claim to be a whiz in math, Steve.  Here's a screen shot of where I got that figure.

I was thinking long tons, I will bow out now I dont know what I am talking about either now it seems

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