Beirut

[farouk]

I doubt if any terrorist bomb ever did that much damage in Beruit.

Ammonium nitrate, BTW, was also the material used by right-wing terrorists Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols to blow up a federal building in Oklahoma city, killing about 170 people, including many children who were in a day care facility next to the truck that held the bomb.

It really was a huge bang....

 

[Yehren]

People don't respect ammonium nitrate,because it so rarely explodes. But it's very unpredictable. One day, for no apparent reason, it can suddenly go off.

There are, of course a lot of things that will make it worse. Contact with paper, organic liquids, and the like makes it more dangerous. And it can nitrify paper and cardboard making it extremely flammable. Restricting air to burning ammonium nitrate is a huge mistake, because it can shift the reaction mechanism over to a much more endothermic reaction. This is what happened at Texas City; a ship with a load of ammonium nitrate had a fire in the hold. The fire department did what is normally a good practice; they sealed the hatches and pumped steam into the hold. That is likely what caused the explosion.

 

[bbyrd009]

I don’t think they know ,or have any reasons to believe this is anything more than a tragic accident at the moment.

such a beautiful place, too!

 

[farouk]

I read in the news about talk of civil war in Lebanon now...sparked off by differences of opinion about the accidental explosion to which negligence was a contributory factor.

 

[Truman]

Another red flag?