Never have I ever seen anything like this up this close…and it’s not that close.
I am fearing casualties in the hundreds, if not thousands from this.
Video of the massive secondary explosion.
Was there a port nearby or something similar storing a lot of fuel that all went up?
What even is this? Lots of little explosions in there before the gigantic one, which must have dwarfed even the initial blast. Some kind of fuel depot?
Oh my god.
Just fyi to the curious, the plume you see in the thumbnail isn’t the “main” explosion.
It was in the port, yes.
I have this huge sense of Deja-vu. Has this happened before at a port, or was that some sci-fi book storyline I was reading?
“The source of the explosion was a major fire at a warehouse for firecrackers near the port in Beirut, the state-run National News Agency reported.”
I was actually going to write that the little explosions you can see in the initial plume seemed like fireworks, but then I thought “obviously they must be much larger than that, given the distance”.
Why so red? What material could make that color?
Firecrackers? That explosive in a single incident?
My question as well. I originally thought “bricks” but that’s just me thinking about seeing red brick buildings demolished. That’s something that’s fueling the blaze afterward
LNG facility???
I was thinking LNG as well. There’s a huge amount of water displaced, so it was likely on a ship or adjacent to the water.
But… a cinnabar red plume from LNG?
If it’s LNG, who the fuck puts an LNG facility in the middle of a city???
There is no LNG facility in Lebanon at all as far as I can tell. Not sure there’s any reason to not take them at their word that it was a fireworks facility at this point. There is another angle of video from this article that makes it seem about as bad as a 2,000lb bomb. Obviously fireworks aren’t the same kind of explosives but who knows how many thousands of pounds of them could have been stored there:
Looks like that China explosion a few years back
It might well be fireworks, i can’t really find a source from googling of such a colored explosion. And Kolbex is right about what appears to be secondary white explosions low in the initial cloud appearing to resemble fireworks.
From the water:
You can hear what sounds like fireworks.
You’re in Beirut? Definitely a day to stay indoors.
Lebanon’s health minister told journalists a ship carrying fireworks had blown up in the port, though the size of the blast heard across the country raised suspicions it might have resulted from a rocket strike or detonation of explosives - deliberate or otherwise. He said at least dozens were wounded but did not give further details of casualties.
That would have to be a hell of a lot of fireworks! Although it does explain the white cloud, it’s just water.