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Devastating explosion in Beirut


Dave-G
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Initial suggestions say a fireworks factory went up - which could be true but a secondary explosion suggest to me there may have been a dirty bomb of some sort(s) may have been stored there and got activated. Possibly an armaments factory.

Edited by Dave-G
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16 minutes ago, Vince Green said:

Being Beirut it could be almost anything that went up

fireworks use black powder and black powder is not a high explosive. The explosion on the TV showed a clear high explosive pressure wave. 

This would back up what you’ve said, 

21AE192C-98FE-464E-AD40-4E82FCCA3258.jpeg

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9 hours ago, Vince Green said:

Being Beirut it could be almost anything that went up

fireworks use black powder and black powder is not a high explosive. The explosion on the TV showed a clear high explosive pressure wave. 

Black powder is explosive enough to do it, and there is precedent. The siege of Almeida, 1810 produced one such explosion that obliterated the town, castle, cathedral and parts of the outer city wall. The pressure wave alone blew men off their posts and rubble was thrown far enough to kill French soldiers who were besieging the town. Only 5 houses were left with their roofs still on. Admittedly it needed 68t of black powder and magazine cartridges, but it's possible! You can still see the crater today, apparently

But I'm inclined to agree. The first explosion could be a fireworks factory, but that second explosion's something else. But I don't think it'll be terrorism. There are plenty of nasty things that, if they go up, could do that. Accidents do happen. and again, there's precedent for them! If there's something explosive, the chances are a man's accidentally blown it up at some point

Edited by chrisjpainter
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There are plenty of vids out there showing pressure waves from low explosives and even fuel going up in large quantities.

As for non conventional weapons, I see nothing to suggest that here, and as for orbital bombardment or "rods from god", any weaponisation of space is such a political hot potato that there's no way any country possessing it would use it short of imminent nuclear conflict because that's its purpose.

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5 minutes ago, chrisjpainter said:

Lebanon officials now saying it was 2,750 tonnes of Ammonium Nitrate that had been stored in a warehouse and had been unchecked for 6 years. Er...that'd do it!

We'll never know what it was, it could have been a weapons dump deliberately set off, it could have been fertiliser??

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