Beirut Port Explosion

A fireworks factory…

Seems plausible. (Update: Just noticed the grain terminal in the direct path of the blast, my money’s on grain dust).

A better angle.

Update: Reports are coming in that the port was obliterated.

More photos here including this shot of the grain terminal.

@spectatorindexLebanese sources report 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded at Beirut Port earlier today. Well, that would do it all right.

71 Replies to “Beirut Port Explosion”

  1. Grain dust or fertilizer storage involved. What a blast. Hopefully there aren’t many casualties.

      1. *
        hey, abdullah… i’ve just about finished filling
        that warehouse in the middle of our critical
        infrastructure
        with fireworks…
        …dude… it’s marlboro time!

        *

    1. Grain dust? Fertilizer? Fireworks?
      How about weapons, ammunition, and bombs?
      Given the politics in that part of the world, which makes more sense ?

      Just asking for a conspiracy theorist friend…

  2. ” Remittances from our brothers in the lands of the crusaders are in the toilet due to the Zionist flu. We’re running out of Christian money. Our banks are in ruins, so is our currency, and the Zionist IMF won’t bail us out. Allah have mercy on us. What else could He do to punish Leban—“

      1. From your Twitter link it works really well to hit pause and drag the icon to the right for forward, then left for reverse.
        Frame by frame it reveals the stunning amount of damage you cant see with a moving picture.

  3. Hezbollah has controlled the port area (where the explosion occurred) of Beirut for decades.
    That was no ‘fireworks explosion’ …not even idiot Muslims put a fireworks factory right downtown of a major city.
    Maybe propane / LNG? …maybe grain dust / a grain elevator explosion? …maybe a warehouse of Hezbollah heavy explosives?
    That second blast looked almost like a mini-MOAB ‘mushroom cloud’ instantly followed by an expanding concussion wave.
    Israel is already denying any involvement, but never underestimate Israel’s ability to inflict damage on their sworn enemies. Unlike most western democracies Israel is not run by a bunch of wussies. If I’m Israel’s Mossad, destroying downtown Beirut is far preferable than allowing Hezbollah’s explosive to destroy downtown Tel Aviv.

  4. It looked like a well oxidized detonation like a fuel-air blast, possibly from the grain elevator. Great shock wave. Not much confinement resulting in high noise / shock wave, low fragmentation. I held a blasters ticket for ten years and it reminded me of sand blasting (laying the explosive over the rock without drilling but fracturing with little movement) usually with Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil (ANFO).

  5. wow, incredible footage. But what gets me is they are speaking English in the first video?

  6. Beirut was the “Paris of the Middle East” up until 1976, then they decided that they prefer this sort of thing. It’s an odd choice….

    1. Reply, if France keeps it up, Beirut will be the “Paris of the Middle East” again.

  7. A corruption-riddled Lebanese government overseeing an economy that cratered many months before the onset of COVID. What better way to divert public attention. I wait for the perfunctory accusations against the “Great Satan.” The only question is whether the skeptical Lebanese public is going to buy it. I doubt it. They have been fighting and demonstrating against their government for a couple of years now.

    Who builds/stores munitions and/or fireworks adjacent to a grain elevator or fertilizer terminal in the middle of the nation’s most important city? (rhetorical)
    https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/01/lebanon-protests-back-streets-economic-crisis-debt-default-lockdown/

  8. As an old sailor, I was there once in late 67, but it was a Shyt hole even then. I saw the biggest rat I have ever seen on the dock there. In the dark, I thought it was a cat, until it moved under a lamppost, it scared the bejeezus out of me! Oh, and it’s still a shyt hole!

  9. As usual the Daily Mail has the pics and videos.

    WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: The country’s health minster said the blast has left more than 3,000 injured

    Dramatic footage shows smoke billowing from the port area shortly before an enormous fireball explodes

    Witnesses have stressed the sheer enormity of the blast, which was heard 125 miles away in Cyprus

    It obliterated the immediate surrounding buildings, where firefighters were still battling flames this evening

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8592549/Massive-explosion-rocks-Beirut-destroying-buildings.html

  10. Pave Pat Blue – unquestionably a fuel-air explosion, from Ghost of Ed’s video above. The first explosion – fireworks, not likely ammunition because you see a couple small explosions going off still on the ground; and there are lots of vid’s of exploding ammunition dumps on Youboob to compare it to, usually large numbers of twinkling lights high in the sky as violently-ejected rifle cartridges cook-off.

    Meanwhile, look at the grain elevators and what they’re doing. Intact – they pretty well ignored the blast – but there are big, long streamers of grain dust hosing-out of the tops of them. To be expected – even though the silos ignored the first blast, they’d be given a severe shaking and there’re years of grain dust in them. The plumes are drifting down onto the fires from the first explosion – and then the whole thing turns into a huge fireball. Textbook dust explosion.

    Likewise, look at the “after” photo of the grain elevators. That whole side of them has been crushed inward – uniformly so. The pressure of the explosion pushed the whole side of the elevators in, so it was a huge low-specific-pressure explosion over a very large area; no single bomb would do that, not even a MOAB* (there are Youboob videos of them as well).

    I will not put this at Israel’s door – the Israelis are many things but they’re not stupid, and they would not risk something like this in a heavily populated area they’re not at war with, they get enough awful publicity black eyes in the normal day-to-day Middle East. I quote Hanlon’s Razor; “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” So, seriously? – build a large pyrotechnic factory right next to grain elevators? My only question would be, since something like this is effectively inevitable, why did it take so long?

    By our very nature, we’re wide-open and very vulnerable to the Law of Unintended Consequences. I’m convinced the final epitaph for the human (?) race will be, “It seemed like a good idea at the time…”

    *MOAB – Massive Ordnance Air Burst, or “Mother Of All Bombs”. They’re so big they can’t be carried by fighters, they’re dropped by transport planes like the C-130 Hercules – and such a transport plane on a bombing run would’ve been picked-up on the way in by air traffic radar.

    1. they are saying there WAS sodium nitrate stored at the docks. (AKA solid rocket fuel). So yah Israel may be the one. If Iran was sending war goods to Hizbolah, to start a war with Israel, so as to take Israel’s attention off blowing things up in Iran, and not attacking Israel directly, because the Jews would retaliate, and that could cause a rebellion in Iran

  11. I’ll take Beirut Lebanon for a thousand, Alec.

    What was the site of the largest unintentionally exploded terrorist bomb?

    A grain dust explosion, a fireworks mishap? You have got to be kidding me. The explosion was heard in Cyprus, 125 miles away. This was an inadvertent accident in the transport or transfer of illegal armaments. The grain terminal perhaps saved thousands of lives by blocking a large portion of the shock wave from devastating more buildings in downtown Beirut.

    1. Bombs are small-point high-pressure pulses – this was not. And, “dust explosion? SERIOUSLY?!” That it happened next to a grain elevator makes the conclusion just about automatic – these are very well-known, and happen relatively often. The attached video shows what its aftermath can look like. Note the incredibly-widespread damage:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwjBJGrhc0k

    2. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8592549/Massive-explosion-rocks-Beirut-destroying-buildings.html

      “Lebanon’s interior minister said ammonium nitrate had been stored in the unit since 2014, with experts agreeing that the chemical would cause the red plume of smoke which burst up from the blast.

      Local media are reporting that 2,700 tonnes of the chemical exploded, causing a ‘strange smell’ at the port which has led officials to instruct civilians to leave for fear of any harmful toxins.”

      1. Who the hell stores that amount of explosives downtown in the port area? The photos remind me of the great Halifax explosion of 1917.

      2. Yes, a wet ANFO hole will produce a lot of yellow and (especially) red smoke. This smoke can be toxic as it will turn into nitric acid in the lungs. Blasters at minesites aways wait for the smoke to clear before going in to check on a blast and count if there are any miss-fires. Holes that have a lot of red smoke mean hard digging because they blast didn’t swell right (only part of the total of available energy was released) because they’re not burned properly and can still contain (soaked) explosives. The residue won’t explode, but it could still burn and give off toxic vapours.

        I was thinking grain dust was the mostly likely source until I saw the colour of the smoke. Aerosol sawdust burns orange, leaves behind white and black ash. Gasoline, the same burn colour, but I’ve only seen black smoke. A properly confined ANFO or ANFO based emulsion, white steam from the water that used to be in the rock and that just got super-heated.

  12. That wasn’t a black powder explosion. Serious ordnance. Ammonium nitrate? Before the huge explosion there were innumerable small explosions that look like individual fireworks or explosives, then a big boom, then a huge boom. Some of it may have been ammonium nitrate but there were explosives involved.

  13. In other news, Lebanon to move to Level 4 containment due to a Covid-19 outbreak that killed hundreds today…

  14. Yes, first guess is just straight ammonium nitrate, and something landed in it and exploded after it caught fire. Second guesses might be ANFO, or ANNM (with nitromethane). It was most definitely a high velocity detonation, and that would not happen with air-fuel explosions, including grain-dust.

  15. They were storing 2700 TONS of Ammonium Nitrate in a warehouse at the dock. That was from the Daily Mail story linked by Chris. The Ammonium Nitrate was supposedly seized from a ship in 2014 and stored in that warehouse at the port.

    Does anyone know if it gets unstable as it ages in heat and humidity? 2,700 pounds, even if it all did not explode at once is a big, big boom. Maybe it is equivalent to one or two Kilotons of conventional explosives.

    1. https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Ammonium-nitrate
      “Soluble in water. Does not readily burn but will do so if contaminated with combustible material. Accelerates the burning of combustible material. Produces toxic oxides of nitrogen during combustion.” The smoke colour is consistent with that, but what was it mixed with to make it detonate like that? The fireworks or other popping could have acted as the primer and booster to set it off, but oxidizers don’t explode without something to burn. Aerosol grain dust wouldn’t do it, it would have to be something mixed in to get the red cloud like that.

      1. Ammonium nitrate will most definitely explode without anything else there to burn. The metallic nitrates (sodium, potassium, barium, etc.) will not. In the Texas City event, the ship(s) were loaded with bagged ammonium nitrate, which somehow caught fire. Once the fire got hot enough, the AN detonated.

        In the Beirut explosion, the last blast is actually two sequential explosions, the second much more powerful than the first. The first is typical of an AN blast with lots of red smoke. The final, bigger blast, a fraction of a second later has a much higher detonation velocity, and has gray smoke, not red. Something else got triggered by the ammonium nitrate explosion.

        1. CND video, post 2nd destination, 29 seconds in. That’s not gray. The initial detonation that is before the 1 second mark in call cases looks gray.

        2. Agreed, the high velocity detonation had no fire ball typical of unconfined ANFO and no smoke from deflagration which seemed present in the first series of explosions. It it weren’t a fuel-air blast it could have been a water-gel based explosive which has no thermal flash.

      1. Why is the dock still intact after the explosion? If it were ammonium nitrate I’d expect a crater and most of the dock gone. That the adjacent grain silos remain standing suggests that the main force of the blast was initially directed upwards before radiating out.

  16. I keep on hearing on the radio that it was a “firework factory” that blew up 🙂 Doubtless Uncle Kamal’s Katushas for Kiddies.

  17. Amonium nitrate benefits from fuel, but does not require it to explode.
    NH4NO3 -> N2 + 2 (H2O) + O-

    It self oxidizes with an O- left over. Adding about 10% Diesel gets you to 100% burn.

    1. That’s the stochiometric products of an AN explosion. In reality, it isn’t that efficient and you end up with a lot of other nitrogen oxides, and red smoke.

  18. You can come up with all of the possibilities and probabilities that you can think of but I’d put money on illegal shipment of terrorist arms and explosives. As for any fertilizer themed ideas, just a question, was the fertilizer there for import or export? If for export where was it produced, if for import why was it stored in a storage facility on the waterfront and why was so much stored in one building, 2000 plus pounds would not create the results of the explosion and 2000 plus tons would require a far larger storage area.

    1. 2000 lbs is one mining blasthole for a modern mine, or the equivalent of the Oklahoma City bombing.

      If it were a solid, ground based bomb then there will be a large level (and pressed flat) zone.

  19. Question for the “pyro” types:

    Why are there distinct, different colours of “smoke” in the sequence?

    There is the initial “fireworks” noise, then the “secondary” produces a shockwave that seems to cause serious damage at what appears to be about two kilometres.

    “Fuel-air explosions”, like those that can occur with grain or flour / coal dust can produce some interesting effects, but that blast front was spectacular. But why would ALL the individual silos be empty and thus repositories of suitable dust, and what intensity of “primary” activity cracked them all open simultaneously? The “orange” flash seems to be associated with the “brown / orange” smoke an instant before the compression front of the shockwave becomes apparent. Smoke from Black Powder is white / pale grey and copious. Other substances / mixtures, different colours, but commercial / military explosives produce a LOT less smoke than Black Powder.

    Fireworks “factory”? Possibly a fireworks warehouse, with no separation bulkheads and no fire suppression system, located in densely-populated urban area…… Black powder has its own interesting burn characteristics and is NOT normally stored in containers that can contain a lot of pressure, so you get more of a “fountain” / Roman candle effect rather than a nasty BOOM.

    Stuff like smokeless ammo propellant is packaged in containers that are quite flimsy so that if in a fire, and the powder starts to “cook off” the initial surge of combustion gases will rip open the canister and relieve the pressure / “containment” that is critical for the situation to become “explosive”. This is why one should NEVER store smokeless (or black) powder in a robust “safe”. In the event of a fire, it may become a serious bomb. Of course, in Ordnance depots, beyond a certain quantity, all bets are off. There are detailed accounts of several nasty propellant fires in North America in the early 20th century that make for interesting reading.

  20. So, having just posted, I read elsewhere that there was 2,750 TONNES of “confiscated” Ammonium Nitrate stored in that warehouse.

    That stuff, even in its purest form, does not just “go off” by itself. Store it in mass, in the company of leaking drums of Diesel fuel and your day may well be ruined, eventually, but suddenly. “Say, Achmed, be careful with that forkl…….”

    But what bozo “stores” that amount of that sort of stuff in BULK in a residential / business district?

    The other thing is that most “domestic” / “agricultural” Ammonium Nitrate “fertilizer” is dosed with substances that drastically reduce its usefulness as an explosive component. Still works as advertised as an agricultural fertilizer. The stuff used around the world, in prodigious quantities, as a component in mining explosives is the “true brew”. Different paperwork involved from the very start in most countries.

    I also wonder what country of origin was on the bags.

    1. Bellingcat has a couple of interesting factoids. The brand name was “Nitroprill” – they suspect a quasi-counterfeit knock-off of a commercial AN fertilizer product, Nitropril. This suggests cheap manufacture. The stuff sat in that warehouse since 2013 when it was confiscated – likely because it’s AN and was being smuggled to Hezbollah as explosives.

      So, low-quality AN baking in the heat for seven years and quietly decomposing; I bet you could find people who worked near that warehouse and complained a lot about the acrid smell. Customs kept asking “Whaddo we DO with all this?”, and never getting an answer; and the obvious answer – “It’s fertilizer, blow it out cheap to the local farmers” – would just result in it being trucked-off by Hezbollah. And there it sat, a disaster waiting to happen. And it did.

      Same old, same old – happens all the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppau_explosion Bellingcat also has a picture of what the warehouse looks like today – big crater filled with seawater where it used to be. No doubt where the epicenter of the blast was.

  21. Get ready for a shipment of the a few thousand of the Canadians of convenience that live in Lebanon.
    PM WE Socks will be waiting at the airport with trays full of Sfouf.

    1. I wonder how many were re-patriated previously by the Harper government. Gives one pause to think why are we being played for the fool. OH…., I guess because we are!!!!!

  22. Addendum to my previous comments. Nobody manufactures fireworks in a working dockside warehouse, and nobody stores ammonia nitrate in a dockside warehouse for four years. Give your head a shake if you start believing what the press is issuing as an explanation.

    1. Take a look at the Bellingcat photos, Antenor. Now tell me what conventional bomb leaves a crater that big?

      1. Well it sure as h*ll wasn’t grain dust now, was it, and it sure as hell wasn’t a “a huge low-specific-pressure explosion”.

        If you want to believe that somebody knew there was 2,700 tons of potential highly explosive material sitting in the centre of a working port facility for the last six years and didn’t do anything about it then that is your choice. Six years of sitting on a time bomb, right, I’ve heard tell that there is a citrus grove up north of Prince Albert that is for sale really cheap, you might be interested.

        1. I repeat Hanlon’s Razor for your benefit: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” There were 2,700 tons of the stuff and it had been there since 2013 – that’s been stated by the Beirut port authorities.

          Did you bother reading the article I ref’d about the Oppau explosion? They had a big silo of the stuff, filled to a depth of several feet that’d been there for years; they wanted rid of it, so they sent-in guys with picks and shovels to break it up and haul it away. But the stuff cements itself together, and it was slow, tough going – so to hurry it up (and no doubt, save some of the wages they were paying the guys with the shovels), some bright spark came-up with the idea of breaking it apart with dynamite. It even worked, for awhile.

          You also haven’t mentioned what kind of conventional bomb could leave a crater that big – and if it’d been a nuke, I bet somebody would’ve noticed some fallout by now. Oh and, you couldn’t get me to move back to BC if you bought the grove yourself and gave it to me – offer it to Prinz Dummkopf, I bet he’d jump at it. #SMH

    2. The press are just quoting the government officials.
      Of course the Lebanese government is a font of openness, transparency, and benevolent wonderment, just like our Dear Leader Justin’s.

      Again, I link this story which explains some background info on the last few years of corruption and economic devastation, t
      hanks to the Hezbollah-linked government….
      https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/01/lebanon-protests-back-streets-economic-crisis-debt-default-lockdown/

  23. Footage from the blast zone appears to show the silo structure still more or less intact and standing. If properly constructed, those cylindrical concrete storage towers are seriously robust; sort of what you want in a structure that may just possibly, one day, host a dust / air explosion. There is a reason they tend to have relatively lightly constructed roof structures . In the event of an “untoward incident”, they are more like a Roman candle than a gigantic grenade.

    However, the “source” structure has “gone away” fairly emphatically.

    Grain silos can be interesting to demolish, too. There was a set of them an inner city location, not far from where I lived at the time. They had not been used for several decades as the port and rail facilities had been “relocated”. So, they were slated for demolition. Unlike ones out in rural areas, these had to be collapsed pretty much into their own footprint. After the usual initial weakening by lots of jack-hammer work, the big day arrived. A rapid series of explosions later, lots of dust and not much movement. Lace it up again. Second time lucky.

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