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Thread: Beirut explosion

  1. #1

    Default Beirut explosion

    Hundreds of people injured, nearby hospitals damaged and overwhelmed, a lot of confusion.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ocks-buildings

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/li...ebanon-capital

    Some reports that it may have been the result of an accident, or, at least, that initial reports of a military attack were in error.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  2. #2
    2nd clip in the 2nd link is the first one I saw on Facebook. You can watch the buildings getting blown apart as the shockwave approaches. Insane.
    "In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    2nd clip in the 2nd link is the first one I saw on Facebook. You can watch the buildings getting blown apart as the shockwave approaches. Insane.
    Sounds like poorly stored explosives and/or 'chemicals'. Some reports suggested were seized years ago from a ship. Not exactly something that Lebanon needed to deal with right now.
    "When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)

  4. #4
    What a horrible tragedy. I can only hope that the area was mostly evacuated following the first explosion/fire. The secondary explosion looked absolutely devastating.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Enoch the Red View Post
    What a horrible tragedy. I can only hope that the area was mostly evacuated following the first explosion/fire. The secondary explosion looked absolutely devastating.
    I'd guess we're looking at hundreds of deaths at least with thousands of injuries. It's a mess.
    "When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)

  6. #6
    "In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."

  7. #7
    Looks absolutely horrific.

    To make matters worse it seems that the port and airport have both been destroyed or damaged so its going to be hard to get aid in.
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    ℬeing upset is understandable, but be upset at yourself for poor planning, not at the world by acting like a spoiled bitch during an interview.

  8. #8
    The airport is fine. But air is a really inefficient way to move in bulk goods like food. Lebanon is going to have some real challenges for a while.

    Sounds like ammonium nitrate, possibly stored in a way that turned it into something like an anfo explosive. Blech.
    Last edited by wiggin; 08-05-2020 at 12:00 PM.
    "When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)

  9. #9
    Incredible, shocking images and sequences.
    Quote Originally Posted by Steely Glint View Post
    It's actually the original French billion, which is bi-million, which is a million to the power of 2. We adopted the word, and then they changed it, presumably as revenge for Crecy and Agincourt, and then the treasonous Americans adopted the new French usage and spread it all over the world. And now we have to use it.

    And that's Why I'm Voting Leave.

  10. #10
    Based on whats come out so far, a bunch of officials dropped the ball and ignored repeated warnings about what they confiscated and stored for 6 years.

    Isn't this the same stuff that McVeigh used?
    Last edited by Ominous Gamer; 08-08-2020 at 04:25 PM.
    "In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
    Isn't this the same stuff that the McVeigh used?
    Him and many others. Ammonium nitrate, usually in combination with petrol or diesel, is a very popular explosive, due to low cost, high availability and ease of preparation and handling of charges - for both industrial purposes and terrorist goals.
    Due to enormous amounts of it being produced, stored and transported worldwide, accidents are also not unheard of (pardon the pun) - Wikipedia even has a list of those.

    A related fun (depending on your sense of humor) fact - one such accident happened in Oppau (now part of Ludwigshafen), Germany, in 1921. There was (and still is) a plant belonging to BASF chemical company, and ammonium nitrate was produced and stored there, in mixture with ammonium sulfate, to be used as fertilizer. The normally granular substance has a tendency to absorb moisture from air and solidify in solid lump on storage, turning the entire stored amount in a hard monolithic mass. This happened in one of BASF silos, too, and workers were sent to break up the 4500-ton piece of solidified fertilizer. Use of pickaxes was standard practice, however, it was impossible in this case due to poor access to the silo (essentially, workers could access the bottom of the silo, where, if successfully broken up, the fertilizer would pour out and bury the workers), so the other standard, at the time, method of breaking up solidified ammonium nitrate/sulfate fertilizer was employed - namely, using dynamite to break it up. While this may sound insane, and the explosive properties of the stuff were well known at the time, the 50:50 mix of of nitrate and sulfate was considered stable enough to withstand the procedure, and indeed, that was the way the problem had been handled up to then, without (too many) incidents.

    However, this attempt was one of the unfortunate ones. There have been speculations about what exactly was the cause of the higher sensitivity of this particular mass of fertilizer, but since all involved workers, as well as the remaining mixture, the silo and most structures in radius of couple km were destroyed, the exact cause of the disaster couldn't be established with certainty.

    While the story about the accident is widely known, a lesser known fact is this: the area was, of course, rebuilt, but someone in BASF, apparently, decided to commemorate the accident in a peculiar way. The explosion left a funnel-shaped crater some 100 m in diameter and about 20m deep. For this reason, a street which was built over the site of the accident was named Trichterstraße - which translates to "Funnel street".
    Carthāgō dēlenda est

  12. #12
    Interesting history about ammonium nitrate...but that doesn't explain why it was stored for years in a Beirut port. They should have known better, right?

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    They should have known better, right?
    Well, the accident in my story happened a few months after an explosion caused by use of dynamite to break up solidified ammonium nitrate fertilizer in a railroad car, also in Germany. That pretty much sums up my opinion on people's ability to learn from past mistakes.

    Also, it is probably quite easy to forget the hazard presented by something that just stands in a warehouse for years without incident. In a way, handling and storing ammonium nitrate is somewhat similar to air travel - it is really safe overall, but when disasters do happen, they are really bad.
    Carthāgō dēlenda est

  14. #14
    Yeah, but when you cite chemical accidents from 1921, and compare it to air travel....it sounds more like the Hindenburg than Delta Airlines.

  15. #15
    I picked that particular one because of the tidbit about Funnel street. There have been others more recently; my first post on the subject includes a link to Wikipedia list.
    Carthāgō dēlenda est

  16. #16
    So....chemical engineering isn't a global science? I'm confused. Shouldn't the Beirut port authorities have known better than to store tons of ammonium nitrate in barrels, for years?

  17. #17
    I don't really understand the comment about chemical engineering not being a global science. Sure it is. So is aerospace engineering, and yet we still have plane crashes, so I don't see the point.

    As for having to know better, they should have, yes. As a matter of fact, from what I read about the incident, requests to do something about the hazardous cargo were made repeatedly over the years, but they seem to have fallen on deaf ears, or tangled up in the bureaucracy. Overall, this seems to be a management (both low and high level) issue, not a chemical engineering one.
    Carthāgō dēlenda est

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by BalticSailor View Post
    I don't really understand the comment about chemical engineering not being a global science. Sure it is. So is aerospace engineering, and yet we still have plane crashes, so I don't see the point.

    As for having to know better, they should have, yes. As a matter of fact, from what I read about the incident, requests to do something about the hazardous cargo were made repeatedly over the years, but they seem to have fallen on deaf ears, or tangled up in the bureaucracy. Overall, this seems to be a management (both low and high level) issue, not a chemical engineering one.
    Right. I just don't see how 'tangled bureaucracy' or 'mismanagement' means anything more than being anti-science. I just figured you knew that, intuitively, as a scientist who's seen your profession treated like a political football in the arena of "facts". Or maybe that's my own disappointment in politicians who don't listen to scientists?

    After all, we have a president who denies science and lies about science every day....yet somehow has panels of scientific "experts" who do the same damn thing. It's sad (but not surprising) that Lebanese chemists were sounding the alarm, but were ignored.


    <If BalticSailor was tasked with storing these ammonium nitrate tanks safely, he would have done things differently. But who listens to scientific professionals and chemical engineers in the anti-science *political* era?>
    Last edited by GGT; 08-08-2020 at 12:18 PM.

  19. #19
    What happened in Beirut is horrific......but it wasn't totally unexpected. Anyone who says so is just waking up to the propaganda of their lives.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    Right. I just don't see how 'tangled bureaucracy' or 'mismanagement' means anything more than being anti-science. I just figured you knew that, intuitively, as a scientist who's seen your profession treated like a political football in the arena of "facts". Or maybe that's my own disappointment in politicians who don't listen to scientists?

    After all, we have a president who denies science and lies about science every day....yet somehow has panels of scientific "experts" who do the same damn thing. It's sad (but not surprising) that Lebanese chemists were sounding the alarm, but were ignored.
    It does seem to do more with your own disappointment in politicians - which, from what I've seen, at least in USA tend to be aggressively anti-science. Worldwide, often the case is not that someone in charge of things is "anti-science", it's that they never bother to ask an expert, or, being outside of the field in question, don't ask the most qualified experts. They'd have no problem with following recommendations, it's just that they don't get particularly good ones, if any. There's also the problem with having to handle many issues at the same time, and therefore prioritizing them - which sometimes leads to important ones being pushed too far back one the to-do list. I suspect some combination of the two were at play in Lebanon; I'm not an expert on economics or politics, but Lebanon appears to have had many pressing issues. Amidst severe economic crisis and political problems it's not that hard to overlook logistics of some confiscated fertilizer. And most times that would not lead to any dire consequences. This simply happened to be one of the "other times".

    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    <If BalticSailor was tasked with storing these ammonium nitrate tanks safely, he would have done things differently. But who listens to scientific professionals and chemical engineers in the anti-science *political* era?>
    In all honesty, I'm not sure that I would have. Not with the information they had at the time, anyway. If I was asked whether it's ok to store 2750 tons of confiscated ammonium nitrate in a warehouse at the port, I'd probably figure the storage in question was to be temporary, and say "provided that the associated safety precautions are taken, sure". It is, after all, a very common substance to be shipped around and stored for periods of time. At that point, I'd have no knowledge of how long they intend to store it, and whether any other dangerous cargo would eventually arrive at the port at any point in the future. So, as far as the decision regarding its temporary storage is concerned, I see nothing that I could have done better.

    Sure, I would request moving of the ammonium nitrate eventually, though I don't have any reason to believe I could write a more persuasive letter to judges or government officials than the customs officials at the Beirut had done over the years. I could write a lengthy risk assessment report concerning storage of potentially explosive material in vicinity of the city, and near the storage area for country's strategic reserve of wheat - but after that, it's out of my hands; I'd have no control over whether anyone might even read it, much less decide to act on it. I could request it being moved to a more appropriate storage area, but I cannot conjure one out of thin air, and if there are no such areas, and no funds to build one (and would they even consider building a dedicated storage for goods they typically don't even have), my request would, in all likelihood, be turned down. If I were asked whether this issue is more pressing than, say, shortage of hospital capacity due to COVID or the extreme and growing poverty rate in the country - I would not feel qualified to answer.

    Of course, I would strongly object to a cargo of fireworks being placed in vicinity of the nitrate. The question is - would they even bother to ask me? Just as I'd prohibit any maintenance works that might generate heat and sparks in the warehouse, yet would I personally patrol the area to ensure these rules are being followed? Probably not. I've other work to do, and at some point I'd just have to rely on trust that my suggestions would be kept in mind and followed. And even then, would any of my precautions be enough in case of unrelated fire somewhere in the port? I don't know. Hindsight is 20/20, but at the time, I cannot certainly say that something could have been done to prevent this.
    Carthāgō dēlenda est

  21. #21
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    "In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."

  22. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by BalticSailor View Post
    Him and many others. Ammonium nitrate, usually in combination with petrol or diesel, is a very popular explosive, due to low cost, high availability and ease of preparation and handling of charges - for both industrial purposes and terrorist goals.
    Due to enormous amounts of it being produced, stored and transported worldwide, accidents are also not unheard of (pardon the pun) - Wikipedia even has a list of those.
    There was one in West Texas earlier in the decade, right?
    Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"

  23. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy View Post
    There was one in West Texas earlier in the decade, right?
    Apparently so. I vaguely remember hearing about it in the news at the time, but as ammonium nitrate explosions go, it seemed relatively small,so I didn't pay much attention to it. The news were probably overshadowed by the Boston Marathon bombing, which happened around the same time.
    Carthāgō dēlenda est

  24. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by BalticSailor View Post
    It does seem to do more with your own disappointment in politicians - which, from what I've seen, at least in USA tend to be aggressively anti-science. Worldwide, often the case is not that someone in charge of things is "anti-science", it's that they never bother to ask an expert, or, being outside of the field in question, don't ask the most qualified experts. They'd have no problem with following recommendations, it's just that they don't get particularly good ones, if any. There's also the problem with having to handle many issues at the same time, and therefore prioritizing them - which sometimes leads to important ones being pushed too far back one the to-do list. I suspect some combination of the two were at play in Lebanon; I'm not an expert on economics or politics, but Lebanon appears to have had many pressing issues. Amidst severe economic crisis and political problems it's not that hard to overlook logistics of some confiscated fertilizer. And most times that would not lead to any dire consequences. This simply happened to be one of the "other times".



    In all honesty, I'm not sure that I would have. Not with the information they had at the time, anyway. If I was asked whether it's ok to store 2750 tons of confiscated ammonium nitrate in a warehouse at the port, I'd probably figure the storage in question was to be temporary, and say "provided that the associated safety precautions are taken, sure". It is, after all, a very common substance to be shipped around and stored for periods of time. At that point, I'd have no knowledge of how long they intend to store it, and whether any other dangerous cargo would eventually arrive at the port at any point in the future. So, as far as the decision regarding its temporary storage is concerned, I see nothing that I could have done better.

    Sure, I would request moving of the ammonium nitrate eventually, though I don't have any reason to believe I could write a more persuasive letter to judges or government officials than the customs officials at the Beirut had done over the years. I could write a lengthy risk assessment report concerning storage of potentially explosive material in vicinity of the city, and near the storage area for country's strategic reserve of wheat - but after that, it's out of my hands; I'd have no control over whether anyone might even read it, much less decide to act on it. I could request it being moved to a more appropriate storage area, but I cannot conjure one out of thin air, and if there are no such areas, and no funds to build one (and would they even consider building a dedicated storage for goods they typically don't even have), my request would, in all likelihood, be turned down. If I were asked whether this issue is more pressing than, say, shortage of hospital capacity due to COVID or the extreme and growing poverty rate in the country - I would not feel qualified to answer.

    Of course, I would strongly object to a cargo of fireworks being placed in vicinity of the nitrate. The question is - would they even bother to ask me? Just as I'd prohibit any maintenance works that might generate heat and sparks in the warehouse, yet would I personally patrol the area to ensure these rules are being followed? Probably not. I've other work to do, and at some point I'd just have to rely on trust that my suggestions would be kept in mind and followed. And even then, would any of my precautions be enough in case of unrelated fire somewhere in the port? I don't know. Hindsight is 20/20, but at the time, I cannot certainly say that something could have been done to prevent this.
    Baltic, this was very refreshing to read. Eminently reasonable.
    "When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." - Werner Heisenberg (maybe)

  25. #25


    New angle, Covid likely saved hundreds of lives.
    "In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."

  26. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by BalticSailor View Post
    It does seem to do more with your own disappointment in politicians - which, from what I've seen, at least in USA tend to be aggressively anti-science. Worldwide, often the case is not that someone in charge of things is "anti-science", it's that they never bother to ask an expert, or, being outside of the field in question, don't ask the most qualified experts. They'd have no problem with following recommendations, it's just that they don't get particularly good ones, if any. There's also the problem with having to handle many issues at the same time, and therefore prioritizing them - which sometimes leads to important ones being pushed too far back one the to-do list. I suspect some combination of the two were at play in Lebanon; I'm not an expert on economics or politics, but Lebanon appears to have had many pressing issues. Amidst severe economic crisis and political problems it's not that hard to overlook logistics of some confiscated fertilizer. And most times that would not lead to any dire consequences. This simply happened to be one of the "other times".
    We don't have to be 'experts' in economics or politics to expect better from our governments. That includes multi-tasking, and getting advice from scientific 'experts', too. It's not just a logistics problem of some confiscated fertilizer, or how to store dangerous compounds safely and properly....

    I've other work to do, and at some point I'd just have to rely on trust that my suggestions would be kept in mind and followed. And even then, would any of my precautions be enough in case of unrelated fire somewhere in the port? I don't know. Hindsight is 20/20, but at the time, I cannot certainly say that something could have been done to prevent this.
    They had warnings for 6 years. That's makes it a predictable and preventable event. When governments fail to take a comprehensive, long term view, and enact policies that keep the public safe (whether it's from corruption, or cronyism, or complacency)....it erodes public trust. Even trust in science and scientists.

    Your post was thoughtful and reasonable (as wiggin said) but what bothers me is the *shrug shoulder* part. As if scientists, in general, are just helplessly watching from the sidelines, or too absorbed in their own work, to realize that politicians and governments are actively ignoring their expertise. Seems to me that scientists worldwide should be *more* disappointed in politicking than the Average Joe.

  27. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    We don't have to be 'experts' in economics or politics to expect better from our governments. That includes multi-tasking, and getting advice from scientific 'experts', too. It's not just a logistics problem of some confiscated fertilizer, or how to store dangerous compounds safely and properly....
    I can agree that broadly construed "expecting better" from government doesn't require any expertise - however, knowing what "better" would actually entail does. So does deciding whether the fertilizer issue is an urgent matter, or other problems take priority over it.

    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    They had warnings for 6 years. That's makes it a predictable and preventable event. When governments fail to take a comprehensive, long term view, and enact policies that keep the public safe (whether it's from corruption, or cronyism, or complacency)....it erodes public trust. Even trust in science and scientists.
    While it might have been preventable, I cannot agree that it was 100% predictable event. Every single risk assessment out there generally consists of two parts - 1) what the actual risks are, and their potential consequences (including absolute worst case scenarios imaginable), and 2) how likely each of the respective scenarios are. That is why I made the comparison with air travel - many of the risks listed in table 1 would be dire indeed, technical malfunctions, pilot errors or deliberate actions, terrorism, the list goes on, each one potentially resulting in deaths of everyone on board. However, the respective likelihoods of each of these events are minuscule. Therefore, overall, air travel is considered safe.

    The same would probably be the risk assessment of storage of the fertilizer in question. The consequences of the explosion would be, well, what we saw in this case. The likelihood, though, would be extremely tiny. Contrast the number of accidents with the fact that the stuff is being produced on the order of 20-odd million tons per year. A stockpile of it blowing up is not a "predictable event", it is a very unlikely possibility.

    Ask yourself this: if you were given a list of all the problems in Lebanon, say, a week before the accident, can you honestly say that from that list you would look at the entry "2750 tons of ammonium nitrate are being stored in the port for 6 years" and immediately see that this is something that should be solved ASAP, compared to the rest of the issues?

    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    Your post was thoughtful and reasonable (as wiggin said) but what bothers me is the *shrug shoulder* part. As if scientists, in general, are just helplessly watching from the sidelines, or too absorbed in their own work, to realize that politicians and governments are actively ignoring their expertise. Seems to me that scientists worldwide should be *more* disappointed in politicking than the Average Joe.
    I can't speak for all scientists, but I'm disappointed about plenty things, sure - in fact, enough so that occasional (mis)handling amounts of fertilizer doesn't really make the list. Management of healthcare issues, both COVID-related and general ones (think antivaccination movements, anti-abortion sentiments, "medicinal nationalism", etc) would probably be the main source of my disappointment overall, followed by irrational fears from nuclear power, and so on.

    Again, you see this particular accident as an example of government taking "anti-science" stance. I don't, since I can't sincerely say that I could have taken measures to prevent this from happening, and I don't have enough information to blame the government. There are plenty of examples where government officials or industry owners did drop the ball with terrible consequences - Bhopal disaster being a prominent example - but this, in my opinion, was not one of them.
    Carthāgō dēlenda est

  28. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by BalticSailor View Post
    Ask yourself this: if you were given a list of all the problems in Lebanon, say, a week before the accident, can you honestly say that from that list you would look at the entry "2750 tons of ammonium nitrate are being stored in the port for 6 years" and immediately see that this is something that should be solved ASAP, compared to the rest of the issues?
    Perhaps, if you were to stratify the list according to both potential impact and solvability.
    "One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."

  29. #29
    Lebanon has a lot of farmland, why didn't they spread it around?
    Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
    If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?

  30. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Aimless View Post
    Perhaps, if you were to stratify the list according to both potential impact and solvability.
    Was this issue that easy to solve, though? Logistics notwithstanding, there's the problem with legal ownership of the cargo. IANAL, but I doubt that whoever arrests a ship due to it not being seaworthy, is at liberty to take its cargo and do as they see fit with it.
    Carthāgō dēlenda est

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