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2,750 Tonnes Of Ammonium Nitrate Exploded: Lebanon PM On Beirut Blasts
https://www.ndtv.com ^ | 08.04.2020 | WorldAgence France-Presse

Posted on 08/04/2020 3:55:29 PM PDT by rxsid

2,750 Tonnes Of Ammonium Nitrate Exploded: Lebanon PM On Beirut Blasts

"It is unacceptable that a shipment of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate has been present for six years in a warehouse, without taking preventive measures," he said at a defence council meeting, a spokesman told a press conference.

(Excerpt) Read more at ndtv.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: again; ammoniumnitrate; beirut; dummies; explosion; hassannasrallah; hezbollah; iran; lebanon
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To: Candor7

It’s part of the Oklahoma City bomb.


141 posted on 08/05/2020 4:16:50 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: EEGator

It sure made a bang, from the video seen on Fox News!The explosion reminds of the 1917 Halifax Explosion caused by a collision between a merchant vessel and an munitions ship.The residual cloud even looks similar. That munitions ship, carrying TNT, picric acid, the highly flammable fuel benzol and guncotton, leveled a large portion of the City. Also the resulting tsunami wiped out a tribe of natives living on a nearby cove:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion

The Beirut explosion was on this order of power.


142 posted on 08/05/2020 4:38:50 AM PDT by Candor7 (Obama Fascism:http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html)
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To: P-Marlowe

False. The Grandcamp’s ammonium nitrate didn’t need to be mixed with anything in order to explode. It needs to be packed tight and get overheated-just like this. There was not one drop of fuel mixed with the tons of ammonium nitrate that blew Texas City to pieces in 1947-and that is a fact.


143 posted on 08/05/2020 4:53:43 AM PDT by NELSON111 (Congress: The Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog show. Theater for sheep. My politics determines my "hero")
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To: rxsid

Carlos Osweda’s Twitter feed is the best explanation of what happened and why...it is a great thing for war prevention.


144 posted on 08/05/2020 5:16:54 AM PDT by CincyRichieRich ( "Where they delete tweets, they will in the end also delete people."-unseen1_unseen)
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To: Candor7
That’s the kind of tonnage stored only in underground bunkers.


Ammonium nitrate

Chemical compound

Description

Description

Ammonium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula NH ₄NO ₃. It is a white crystalline solid and is highly soluble in water. It is predominantly used in agriculture as a high-nitrogen fertilizer. Wikipedia
Formula: NH4NO3
Main hazards: Explosive, Oxidizer
54 pounds per cubic foot
Conventionally, an ammonium nitrate prill with a bulk density of 54 pounds per cubic foot (0.865 kg/L) or more is considered high density prill.

Lessee...2,700 tons = 5,400,000 lb or 100,000 cubic feet 
 
If this stuff was piled 10 feet high; you'd need 10,000 sq feet of floor space or a 100 by 100 foot building.

145 posted on 08/05/2020 5:27:37 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

A friend of mine was Army EOD for 10 years. He says it could have been NH4NO3, but the color of the blast was way off.

He ran down the list of stuff that it wasn’t.

He said that there must have been an awful lot of iron or strontium lying around in the same place. He said that or the building was made of red clay, like Georgia dirt.


146 posted on 08/05/2020 5:34:26 AM PDT by RinaseaofDs
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To: P-Marlowe

[I stand corrected.]


Very few laypeople make the connection between fertilizer and explosives. And that’s likely what was at work here. (The Haber process, which revolutionized the production of fertilizer, also had this effect on the production of explosives).

The US, in the wake of a globe-spanning war that saw widespread use of all kinds of volatile chemicals, a massive governmental apparatus that sprang up to fight that war and a general reputation for competence, failed to foresee the Texas disaster. There was no hope that Lebanon, with its mishmash of literally warring tribes, ethnicities and religions, could have foreseen this. Everyone’s too consumed in the day-to-day business of trying not to be stomped by the various protection rackets at work there for anyone to be thinking about the big picture (i.e. things like chemicals, the appropriate storage facilities and environment and a routine inspection regime).


147 posted on 08/05/2020 6:35:40 AM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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To: Zhang Fei; P-Marlowe
Ammonium nitrate has both a reducing (=fuel) part (the ammonium ion) and an oxidizing part (the nitrate ion).

(Most modern explosives have this pattern, an oxidizer and a reducer in the same molecule.) Ammonium nitrate, NH4NO3, "wants" to be N2 (elemental nitrogen) + H2O + O2 (oxygen). When it gets its "wish," it releases a nice chunk of energy quickly (i.e., it goes "boom").

Because it has "extra" oxygen, you can mix a fuel with it (diesel fuel, or basically anything that burns and can be finely divided and mixed) and get a bigger boom. That's why ANFO -- ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (#2 diesel) -- gives a bigger "boom" than plain ammonium nitrate. Diesel is obviously cheap and easy to get, so people doing blasting with ammonium nitrate (e.g., miners) always use ANFO instead of plain AN.

Ammonium perchlorate is the same deal; oxidizer and fuel in the same molecule. Ammonium perchlorate, with difficulty, can be persuaded to burn very rapidly, rather than explode, with the added fuels of synthetic rubber and powdered aluminum. And that's where you get solid rocket boosters like the shuttle used. It can also blow up if you don't treat it nicely (cf PEPCON explosion).

Saltpeter (potassium or sodium nitrate) has the oxidizer but lacks the fuel -- the potassium or sodium is already in a "happy" oxidation state and just goes along for the ride. It won't blow up by itself, but will decompose if you get it hot enough. If you mix it with a fuel (e.g., powdered charcoal and a little sulfur), the resulting mixture can be explosive, which is how black powder came to be.

148 posted on 08/05/2020 7:37:41 AM PDT by Campion (What part of "shall not be infringed" don't they understand?)
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To: Clay Moore

It’s my understanding that given the right enviroment and over time this stuff will self-ignite.


149 posted on 08/05/2020 7:53:01 AM PDT by caww
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To: rxsid
Beirut blast probe points to bungled storage of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate
150 posted on 08/05/2020 7:59:07 AM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal (Like Enoch, Noah, & Lot, the True Church will soon be removed & then destruction comes forth.)
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To: yarddog
Timothy McVeigh made quite a point with fertilizer.
151 posted on 08/05/2020 8:03:37 AM PDT by Churchillspirit (9/11/2001 and 9/11/2012: NEVER FORGET.)
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To: Clay Moore
My mom said the Texas City explosion shook their house about 80 miles away.

It shook our apartment too. Of course, we only lived a mile from where the Grandcamp was docked. As a kid, I thought it was an earthquake.

152 posted on 08/05/2020 8:16:40 AM PDT by rustbucket
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To: rxsid

This was a tactical nuke. I don’t know if it was one of the lost suitcase bombs missing from Russia years ago, or a highwire tactical nuke recovered or stolen during a covert military operation, or even a contingency nuke acquired from one of the nuclear member nations. Anyone who has planned to use these weapons in the past, though never employed, knows what these weapons can do and what their signature is and what this type of weapon envelope looks like. I’m saying it now. I don’t care what the consensus is for public consumption, this was a small tactical nuclear bomb.


153 posted on 08/05/2020 8:21:36 AM PDT by Rainwave ("Work out your OWN salvation with fear and trembling")
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To: Rainwave

A groundburst nuke would have produced a blinding flash. No flash. There would also be all kinds of radiation signatures that any university-level physics department or nation in the region could detect.


154 posted on 08/05/2020 8:23:56 AM PDT by Campion (What part of "shall not be infringed" don't they understand?)
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To: Campion

Maybe the radiation readings are yet to come out or to be covered up but as to the the blinding flash, that is not a requirement or affect of every weapon system of the many different types (yes, there are) of smaller lower grade tactical nukes. The military’s of not just the United States but others have weapon systems that we are not privy to or have knowledge of. I still say it was a small military tactical nuke or a very crude, low yield nuclear bomb. 100 “mother of all bombs” could not have the same signature concussion or devastating effect that this incident shows.


155 posted on 08/05/2020 8:39:57 AM PDT by Rainwave ("Work out your OWN salvation with fear and trembling")
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To: Rainwave
Maybe the radiation readings are yet to come out or to be covered up

Tinfoil hat stuff. You're saying every university and government within a 1000 mile radius of Beirut is in on the coverup? Nope, not buying it.

as to the the blinding flash, that is not a requirement or affect of every weapon system of the many different types (yes, there are) of smaller lower grade tactical nukes

Here's the smallest nuke ever fielded by the US --> video here

The blast yield is about 20 tons of TNT, about 1 or 2 *percent* of the yield of the explosion in Beirut.

Note: observers all wearing dark glasses to protect their eyes from the flash. Explosion produces blinding flash.

I rest my case. The only way you would *not* get a blinding flash from a nuclear device is if you set it off underground or under water.

156 posted on 08/05/2020 8:48:53 AM PDT by Campion (What part of "shall not be infringed" don't they understand?)
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To: Rainwave
I will grant you this: that was not just ammonium nitrate going up. Ammonium nitrate won't give that black, dirty mushroom cloud. It would be white with maybe a little orange (from nitrogen dioxide).

That's ammonium nitrate with a lot of dirt on top if it, or it's an oxygen-poor explosive like TNT (which will give a dirty black cloud), or something. But not just ammonium nitrate.

157 posted on 08/05/2020 11:24:24 AM PDT by Campion (What part of "shall not be infringed" don't they understand?)
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To: kaehurowing

heard from one source Dave at X22Report that the building was used to store bombs and missiles for terrorists. Sounds like a costco for bad guys. He said someone or entity caused them to explode before they were able to be dispersed to your local terrorists.


158 posted on 08/05/2020 11:33:03 AM PDT by Coffee_drinker (Drain The Swamp.)
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To: rxsid

Well done, Mossad. I approve!


159 posted on 08/05/2020 12:12:22 PM PDT by 2harddrive (Go to www.CodeIsFreeSpeech.com for 10 FREE 3D-printer gun blueprints!)
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To: rxsid
Oopsie. So that's where Curly left it.


160 posted on 08/05/2020 1:21:32 PM PDT by Eleutheria5 ("SHUT UP!" he explained.)
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