Normally ports aren’t overly populated, but there are news reports that 2 hospitals and the Aus embassy took a bit of a hit.
Plus it’s during the week so presumably more workers if it’s an industrial area.
The port area itself isn’t populated but it isn’t big. The area is surrounded by residential, government and business buildings - and many are high rise buildings. Beirut is a tightly packed city.
The death toll will rise into the hundreds, if not thousands.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said one Australian had been killed and Australia’s embassy was damaged in the blast.
Very similar to Tianjin 2015
Beirut PM says 2750 tonnes of Ammonium Nitrate have been stored there for six years and enquiry underway as to why…
Bloody hell, imagine how solidified it must have become sitting in salt air for that long? It probably became simply too difficult to move.
Apparently the blast was heard hundreds of kilometers away.
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2020 - Annus horribilis
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It’s not going well
Bloody Dan Andrews
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Why would someone just store it for 6 years…
Take it to the explosion blame thread!
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The security guards probably set up an illegal brake servicing business in the storerooms.
Suuuuure “fireworks”
The blast could be heard in Cyprus.
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■■■■■■■ hell
Devastating. My thoughts are with anybody on this forum that has family there. There’s a massive Lebanese community in Australia.
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An official said the warehouse held highly explosive material including ammonium nitrate, which was stored at the port after being confiscated from a ship.
Investigators believe the explosion was ignited by someone trying to weld a hole in a storage building to stop the material being stolen.
Both sodium nitrate and ammonium nitrate are used in dynamite and have been used to make bombs.
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My goodness, 2700 tons!! I can’t even visualize how big that is… no wonder it’s such a big explosion. For reference, the first atomic bomb was a 15kt device, this was 2.7kt.
The OKC bomber used 2 tons and that was devastating, This was 2700, the poor people must have thought they were under attack.
Just awful. Also disgusting how quickly the western media jumped to the terrorism conclusion.
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