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Devastating explosion in Beirut


Dave-G
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20 minutes ago, Dave-G said:

Tin hat on - is that some muck on the car window or a plane leaving the drop zone a few seconds into the video? 

 https://www.facebook.com/190368281064086/videos/2795969267353535/UzpfSTE0MTc2ODE4Njk6MTAyMTkyMDQ0MzUxNjc4NTk/

You mean this? Not convinced... It's stationary for one thing and it looks like there's an out of focus pole connecting it to the ground. Much like the street lamp pole in direct foreground.

image.png.e8abbbcec2e62fdce7a8b1897d97398c.png

2 hours ago, Vince Green said:

Ammonium Nitrate is a common agricultural fertiliser. It is not regarded as an explosive substance. Evidenced by the fact you will find it stacked in farmers barns up and down the country with no restrictions.

The IRA used it as a component in improvised car bombs by mixing it with It diesel  oil and packing it into gas cylinders. I believe the talaban did the same.

Very suspicious

Did you have a read of the wikipedia article I posted, dedicated specifically to Ammonium Nitrate going boom? 30 major incidents from all over the world, killing up to over 500 people at a time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_nitrate_disasters

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2 hours ago, chrisjpainter said:

You mean this? Not convinced... It's stationary for one thing and it looks like there's an out of focus pole connecting it to the ground. Much like the street lamp pole in direct foreground.

image.png.e8abbbcec2e62fdce7a8b1897d97398c.png

Did you have a read of the wikipedia article I posted, dedicated specifically to Ammonium Nitrate going boom? 30 major incidents from all over the world, killing up to over 500 people at a time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_nitrate_disasters

Not yet I've been out all day

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5 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Did the BBC News Beirut Corespondent really just say this is the site of the bombing?

I hope it was her poor grasp of the English language that caused that!

It was an explosion, not a bomb!!!!!!!!!

Oh good grief, that's all we need! cue conspiracy theorists saying it's a media cover up. I wonder who did this one, Kim Jong Un or Elvis?

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Ammonium Nitrate, fairly certain, set off by the fire from the firworks store next door. The team of firefighters sent to extinguish the original fire have not been found all but one.

The red smoke cloud is typical of ammonium Nitrate, some reports 6 tons stored there some reports 14 tons.  If you had witnessed one agricultural bag of the stuff go up in N Ireland during the troubles set of just by a small explosive charge, you would understand why there is now a big hole where the factory was.  There is little doubt many lives and injuries where saved by the 'buttress' of the grain store, which covered that side of the explosion and took the full force.

Apparently they had been repeated warned of the danger but Lebanon is so corrupt anyhting could happen.

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37 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

Ammonium Nitrate, fairly certain, set off by the fire from the firworks store next door. The team of firefighters sent to extinguish the original fire have not been found all but one.

The red smoke cloud is typical of ammonium Nitrate, some reports 6 tons stored there some reports 14 tons.  If you had witnessed one agricultural bag of the stuff go up in N Ireland during the troubles set of just by a small explosive charge, you would understand why there is now a big hole where the factory was.  There is little doubt many lives and injuries where saved by the 'buttress' of the grain store, which covered that side of the explosion and took the full force.

Apparently they had been repeated warned of the danger but Lebanon is so corrupt anyhting could happen.

The BBC are saying that 2750 tonnes were stored at the site. 

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Welding on the door of Warehouse 12 had been carried out a couple of hours before the explosion.

 

Reportedly the load from a ship that suffered engine trouble on the way to Africa with the load of AN.

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On 07/08/2020 at 17:19, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Welding on the door of Warehouse 12 had been carried out a couple of hours before the explosion.

 

Reportedly the load from a ship that suffered engine trouble on the way to Africa with the load of AN.

Hello, never see that report Dave ? I presume warehouse 12 is where the highly explosive material was located ?

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4 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, never see that report Dave ? I presume warehouse 12 is where the highly explosive material was located ?

Yup. It's all a horrid mess and it seems it's all been cause by bureaucracy and shirking of responsibility. For six years:
Late 2013 and a Russian businessman fancies his chances as a shipping tycoon. He buys the MV Rhosus, which is old, beaten up and prone to taking on water. He also has very little money. 

His first shipment is the AN and it goes out of Georgia, bound for Mozambique, but it only gets as far as Greece, where it sits for a few months. Meanwhile the crew desert, because they've not been paid for months. A new crew and captain are found, but there's no money to repair the boat or pay the crew, so the captain decides to try and take on some more cargo to pay for it all, in particular the Suez Canal fees. This goes wrong as the hatches can't take the weight of the supplies, so it's all unloaded again in Greece (the AN is still on board). Eventually cash is made available and they set sale for Mozambique.

The boat breaks on the way, and they make an emergency stop in Beirut, but they can't afford repairs, port fees or business fees, and no money's coming from the Russian businessman. Most of the crew are let off, except the captain and three others. They're on the boat, and essentially being held hostage by Lebanon. They can't leave until they pay, but they can't pay. All the while the AN is just sat there. Eventually Lebanese lawyers come to the captain's aid and argue (crucially) that it's too dangerous to imprison people underneath a large bomb that's also prone to sinking. So they're let off, hand the keys to immigration and head home to Ukraine, but not before the captain makes it abundantly clear that the cargo's dangerous and needs to be either disposed of or sold as fertilizer, but inaction isn't an option. However no one knows who owns the AN. at some point (no one's sure when!) the AN's unloaded into the warehouse and a few letters over the next six years go back and forth between the port officials and the courts saying it's dangerous let's get it shifted.

No one takes responsibility. The government says it's the port's responsibility, the port says it's the court's responsibility and so on and so on for six years. At some point and no one really knows when, where, or how, the boat sinks. The crew were let off because it was dangerous, so the courts knew it was a danger, as did everyone else, but they all passed the buck and found a reason why they couldn't be responsible for it. 

This is a summary from the BBC article below, but it includes all the salient details!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/x2iutcqf1g/beirut-blast

 

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