Massive explosion in Beirut just now

Holy shit. I don’t want to know what the loss of life is going to be. At least it looks like the dense residential area was out of range. :(

Yeah the white haze looks like water, but the dramatic reddish mushroom after the secondary should also be very diagnostic as to what kind of explosive was involved.

If you look closely in one of the videos you do see lots of little flashes going off, so unless there was a major gunfight it seems like it probably was a boat carrying fireworks.

Maybe it wasn’t assembled fireworks at the end. It might have been their powder store. Probably not compartmented well.

Have seen a couple of folks who seem reasonably intelligent speculate that the reddish cloud may signify some sort of nitrogen dioxide or something similar.

If it is nitrogen dioxide, they should probably evacuate or isolate much of the nearby city.

So many dummies on social media right now saying it’s a nuclear explosion. If you know anything about this sort of thing, it’s so very clearly not. I hate how stupid people are. OMG ITS THE MIDDLE EAST MUST BE A NUKE!!!

The first video is honestly pretty disturbing.

Now realize they’re just as stupid about every other topic and you’ll wonder why you listen to any of them!

early statement



Sure, let’s just leave this confiscated explosive lying around, what could go wrong.

They had top men working on its disposal.

Top.

Men.

Hey guys, we seized all these high explosives from terrorists. What should we do with them?

Just store them in our biggest city for now. What could possibly go wrong?

Bring them to the palace, it’s the safest place in the city.

Actually there was an apocryphal story of some secret document or item (maybe a container of heavy water?) in WW2 being kept under the bed of an English Royal during an Atlantic crossing, because it was literally thought the safest place on the ship.

Look at the clouds…

So this is essentially Oklahoma City, except this time as an accident?

That reporter also says that Beirut’s hospitals are being overwhelmed by wounded.

You fooled me into looking at twitter. Shame!

Stupid. Stupid never changes.

Similar, I guess? I have no knowledge of chemistry whatsoever. But I thought OKC was ammonium nitrate…which may be similar or the same thing in most respects?

FWIW, both Israel and Hezbollah have immediately said not only “Not us” but also “Probably not them” (referring to one another.)

Honestly i’m thinking how much worse it could have been had it been 2000 meters toward the center of town.

I don’t know if that is “totally destroyed” or not. It looks fixable. The tall building in the background otoh looks a total loss. (There are still light poles standing, apparently undamaged aside from power, near the photographer).

There’s going to be lots of injured and killed dock workers and associated casualties though.