NPR

Slick wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 4:30 pm Bloody hell, what could that have been. Not just a bomb?

JM2K6 wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 4:42 pm It seems unlikely to be fireworks - you wouldn't expect an explosion that massive, and the stuff that's sparking off doesn't look like fireworks, more like munitions. But hey, who knows, we'll find out soon enough I suppose.

JM2K6 wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 4:36 pm

Raggs wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 5:01 pm Guardian reporting that the Lebanese health minister said there was a ship carrying fireworks in the dock.

It's odd that there's clearly a fire going on at first, which seems to trigger the large explosion.

And because the Guardian are completely unbiased and reasonable reporters, they've of course contacted Israeli military for commeint (who didn't comment).

(Actually, I don't mind Guardian reporting for a lot of things, but biases are biases).

JM2K6 wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 5:01 pm I'm obviously just spitballing, it's just that the other fireworks factory / warehouse explosions I've seen have had more obvious "fireworks going off" trails and smaller explosions. Either way... feeling a bit guilty about speculating when it looks like there's going to be a serious death toll :(

Raggs wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:10 pm Reports now that it was actually a storage facility containing confiscated high explosives.

EDIT - Sounds more and more like it was just a weapons storage facility.

fishfoodie wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:20 pm

Raggs wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:10 pm Reports now that it was actually a storage facility containing confiscated high explosives.

EDIT - Sounds more and more like it was just a weapons storage facility.

Definately more plausible. The secondary explosion was too fast for something like gas, or fireworks; the shock wave was moving very fast.

I wondered if they had a large quantity of Fertilizer at the docks, as it looked like the explosion they had film of, in West Texas, at a Fertilizer plant, & it was only something like 20 tonnes that devastated the town. It was a similar situation where there was a small fire, that just wasn't tackled before the fertilizer cooked off

Margin__Walker wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 7:49 pm Been hearing about this today without paying a lot of attention. First time I've actually seen footage though.

Jesus, that's a huge explosion. Terrifying

Hal Jordan wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 8:19 pm Christ on a bike.

Twitter has it that there may have been a grain silo nearby and they seriously go bang under the right (wrong) conditions.

Someone else has likened it to the 1917 Halifax explosion when a ship laden with high explosives collided with another ship and blew nigh on 2,000 people to Kingdom Come.

fishfoodie wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 8:32 pm

Hal Jordan wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 8:19 pm Christ on a bike.

Twitter has it that there may have been a grain silo nearby and they seriously go bang under the right (wrong) conditions.

Someone else has likened it to the 1917 Halifax explosion when a ship laden with high explosives collided with another ship and blew nigh on 2,000 people to Kingdom Come.

Google Earth is useful, & with the last video above, you can see the explosion happened in one of the warehouses beside the line of silos, & in the video you can see the silo building bulge out, as the shock wave expanded out.

There are probably chunks of concrete from those silos all along the shoreline

Raggs wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:10 pm Reports now that it was actually a storage facility containing confiscated high explosives.

EDIT - Sounds more and more like it was just a weapons storage facility.

Sandstorm wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 10:01 pm BBC says it was an old ammonium nitrate store, not maintained in over 6 years.

Enzedder wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:01 pm A composite of the explosions from different viewpoints

Sandstorm wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 10:01 pm BBC says it was an old ammonium nitrate store, not maintained in over 6 years.

2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate was stored unsafely.