Big Boom

[CypherNinja]

My understanding is that there were two explosions.

A fire started (eventually with fireworks going off in it), which lead up to the first explosion (caught on camera by the guy just above in the thread). This first explosion is actually the reason most people who caught the whopper had their phones out. Then as the fire continued, now making an even larger smoke plume, you suddenly get the big one. If that guy had been standing at the place shown in the video when the big one went off, he'd have landed on the other side of the bay.

[WLJ]

Yep, the first one was reported to be a fireworks factory/storage which would explain both the colored smoke and the flashes of light.
Lets put a big pile of AN next to a fireworks factory. What could possibly go wrong?

[RocketMan]

I agree. MechAg94 did ask above if they could have been live streaming.
From the motion I would say someone was holding the camera

A person live streaming is sounding like the most probable explanation.  That close to the second blast would make survival unlikely IMO.

[Boomhauer]

Yep, the first one was reported to be a fireworks factory/storage which would explain both the colored smoke and the flashes of light.
Lets put a big pile of AN next to a fireworks factory. What could possibly go wrong?

Allahu Akbar OSHA is a little different than US OSHA

[WLJ]

Allahu Akbar OSHA is a little different than US OSHA

[WLJ]

Views from the ground. Crazy stuff on the highway starting around the 2 minute mark, cars flipped, maybe from accidents, a fair distance away from ground zero

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwWIonkRB2Y

[bedlamite]

[230RN]

‘Absolutely insane’: Heart-stopping footage shows Beirut bride’s dream become a nightmare at the moment of deadly explosion [video]
https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2020/08/05/absolutely-insane-heart-stopping-footage-shows-beirut-brides-dream-become-a-nightmare-at-the-moment-of-deadly-explosion-video/

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1291037496919261185

Now that's what I call celebratory gunfire.

[WLJ]

Frame by frame = wow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr9_kvw2aO0

[WLJ]

Okay, what? 

Far-right conspiracy theorists, including QAnon supporters, have also started sharing false claims about the explosion on Facebook. They suggest that the attack is related to a "war between the government and the central banking system".

QAnon is a wide-ranging, unfounded conspiracy theory that says US President Donald Trump is waging a secret war against elite Satan-worshipping paedophiles in government, business and the media.

Beirut explosion: How conspiracy theories spread on social media
https://www.bbc.com/news/53669029

[WLJ]

It's not the Middle East's week

UAE: Massive fire breaks out in Ajman market
https://www.timesnownews.com/international/article/uae-massive-fire-breaks-out-in-ajman-market-watch/632570

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cgDCnkcrzc

[Jim147]

Have you seen what has happened in Iran over the last month?

[WLJ]

Have you seen what has happened in Iran over the last month?

You referring to this?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53598965

[Angel Eyes]

"No boom today.  Boom tomorrow."

Oops, never mind.  Boom today.

[230RN]

Yep, the first one was reported to be a fireworks factory/storage which would explain both the colored smoke and the flashes of light.
Let's put a big pile of AN next to a fireworks factory. What could possibly go wrong?

SPEC

Watching those flashes in the smoke cloud, I start thinking maybe an aerial salute from the fireworks outfit flew into the AN storage hangar and that's what set it all off.  

Just a thought.

ULATION

[Ben]

"No boom today.  Boom tomorrow."

Oops, never mind.  Boom today.

 

https://youtu.be/299knTdX-Wo

[cordex]

A good breakdown from an explosive expert/chemist and they tease a future demo they're going to do with AN:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPf3P-1PEBw

[WLJ]

They're trying to get to an underground room under the grain elevator where they hope to find survivors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhLpFnTrn8Y

[WLJ]

Another wedding

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAAEPJzw-Hw

[230RN]

AMMONIUM NITRATE DOUBLETHINK

A good breakdown from an explosive expert/chemist and they tease a future demo they're going to do with AN:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPf3P-1PEBw

Struck me as about 80% blather.  Hi, Mom.

Their chart at ~5:03:
Melts 337°F
Boils 410°F

Paraquote:  "At which point it will explosively decompose."

Paraquote:
"AN is not an explosive, but under the right conditions it will detonate."

I guess for DOT purposes, technically it is a "Strong Oxidizer" or something like that.

But I think large quantities of this "strong oxidizer" ought to be kept in magazines, like firearms propellants in large quantities.

You know, even single based propellant powders, like IMR 4350, can detonate if pushed hard enough... "pushed" meaning like the transfer of energy from a .30-'06 to a barrel full of it.  (See Hatcher's Notebook.)  And let's remember that temperature (e.g. 410°F)  is actually a measure of the velocities of atoms or moleculres or a 150 grain bullet.

I think the flashes were not individual units of AN going off, but rather, since they occurred while apparently airborne, fireworks from the fireworks outfit.  Thus I can easily imagine an aerial salute getting into the AN storehouse and detonating the whole mess, as I speculated earlier in this thread. (http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=62659.msg1265685#msg1265685)

I respect  their professional expertise, but I thnk they missed a couple of points and seemed to want to echo the Ag and Transportation industries' apparent position that Ammonium Nitrate is safe.

Well, maybe a couple hundred pounds of it, but not 2500 tons.  As evidenced multiple times by documented history.

The risk management analyisis seems to need adjusting.  "Aw, hell, it only destroys a city only every decade or so, so why bother changing the regulations?"

I really have to laugh tragically at this whole notion that it's not an explosive, since it only goes off under the right conditions.

Talk about doublethink.   :(

Terry, 230RN

[RoadKingLarry]

Candy-gram for Mongo Achmed

[K Frame]

Look at the windows dancing in that second wedding video. Holy crap.

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

[Brad Johnson]

"AN is not an explosive, but under the right conditions it will detonate."

I guess for DOT purposes, technically it is a "Strong Oxidizer" or something like that.

But I think large quantities of this "strong oxidizer" ought to be kept in magazines, like firearms propellants in large quantities.

Terry, 230RN

It's stable and harmless unless heated to beyond 400 deg F. No need for extraordinary measures other than keeping it dry and isolated from high heat sources. In this case it was a perfect *expletive deleted*it storm of fail in all respects.

Brad

[cordex]

I don’t believe a firework magic bullet exploding in a pile of AN would be likely to set it off. If it were that sensitive it probably would be treated as a secondary explosive instead of a vastly less sensitive tertiary explosive. Also it would make the whole explosive fracturing of AN thing completely untenable.

I think it is much more likely that - just as in most AN industrial explosions - there was a serious fire that caused thermal decomposition while simultaneously adding sensitizing compounds in ash and smoke. The fireworks likely contributed to the initial explosion and fire, but I don’t think they were necessary for the AN to detonate.

[230RN]

^ "The fireworks likely contributed to the initial explosion and fire, but I don’t think they were necessary for the AN to detonate. "

^^ "It's stable and harmless unless heated to beyond 400 deg F. No need for extraordinary measures other than keeping it dry and isolated from high heat sources. In this case it was a perfect *expletive deleted*it storm of fail in all respects."

It's safe, but it isn't.

Doublethink.

The point I was making was that temperature = velocity, and that even such stable compounds as IMR 4350 can go off if subjected to a high enough velocity (temperature) encounter.  So the "400 degree temperature" can simply occur with a collision, as in the IMR 4350 example.  (At which point, as the videographers noted, it can continue to decompose exothermically in a runaway fashion.)

But I'm not suggesting that any "magic bullet" (say whut?) set it off, I'm speculating, based on the prior flashes, that an explosive pyrotechnic from the factory  might have got in with it in its storage facility and set it off with its own shock wave.  Maybe.

That re-started a discussion of how safe it is.

Nitroglycerine, too, is safe unless mishandled or stored unsafely.

So is nitrogen tri-iodide.  Which, "when kept cold in the dark and damp with ammonia, NI3 · NH3 is stable. "

It's "safe,"  but it isn't.  (I really had to roffle at that cold and in the dark description.)

Doublethink.

And the extraordinary circumstances under which AN can be unsafe  seem to occur with "irregular regularity."

Terry

REFs:
Reply #89 herein.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_triiodide