Article

2020-08-09 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Beirut would be ‘erased’ had full chemical load exploded, bulk likely stolen

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Posted by Fred 2020-08-09 00:00|| || Front Page|| [8 views ] Top
File under: Hezbollah

#1 that it is much more likely that large amounts were stolen over the years

...or sold and sent to terrorist trouble spots in the region for IED and bomb making.

Posted by Besoeker 2020-08-09 01:08|| 2020-08-09 01:08|| Front Page Top

#2 No wonder Nasrallah was upset.

Posted by gorb 2020-08-09 02:56|| 2020-08-09 02:56|| Front Page Top

#3 I was wondering about that myself.

The 2700 tons of Ammonium nitrate should have made, assuming it all went off at once, a 1 to 2 kiloton TNT equivalent explosion but the various detailed measurements only come in at 0.1 to 0.3 kilotons

Posted by lord garth 2020-08-09 10:51|| 2020-08-09 10:51|| Front Page Top

#4 On of the problems limiting the size of very large chemical explosions is how to get it to detonate evenly before the 'bomb' disassembles itself. Most large military bombs have multiple detonators distributed throughout the charge, both as backups and to beat the initial pulse through the charge.
Likely that huge cloud in the videos had a significant amount of 'unburned' ammonite, which then settled as dust downwind. Kind of like the unburned powder that fouls the barrel of your firearm.

Posted by ed in texas 2020-08-09 13:23|| 2020-08-09 13:23|| Front Page Top

#5 per the various videos, e.g. this one,

there seem to have been 3 stages to the explosion(s)

stage one - white smoke with flashes at the base
stage two - larger red and black blast
stage three - even larger white blast, a half second or so after stage two, which evidently had a pressure wave

Posted by lord garth 2020-08-09 14:46|| 2020-08-09 14:46|| Front Page Top

#6 I meant my previous comment to link to this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNDhIGR-83w

but of course there are now a lot of versions of it

Posted by lord garth 2020-08-09 16:08|| 2020-08-09 16:08|| Front Page Top

#7 It's not TNT. It's 2.7 kilotons of something lesser with the limitations described above. The live video points to a 1.5 kt or so blast. BDA should give a decent estimate.

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-08-09 16:45|| 2020-08-09 16:45|| Front Page Top

#8 stage three - even larger white blast, a half second or so after stage two, which evidently had a pressure wave

That's the ground turned to dust. Result is the crater. As the downward portion of the blast is now reflect back up, you get the highest pressure difference and the formation of the shock wave from the ground up.

Posted by Omick Turkeyneck9291 2020-08-09 19:32|| 2020-08-09 19:32|| Front Page Top

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