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Thread: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital





    Last edited by TargeT; 5th August 2020 at 01:04.
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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    Quote Posted by norman (here)
    Quote Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
    According to a tweet from Lebanese President Michel Aoun, it was 2,750 tonnes (3,000 tons) of ammonium nitrate that had been stored there in a warehouse for the last 6 years.
    Why 2 explosions quite a long time apart ?
    I do not know how long apart it was, I did read it was 2 explosions, seems like one triggered the other one? It is clear in the video, there were ammunition or fireworks cracking and lots of smoke and then a huge one followed like a shroom cloud. Intentional or not, the first one seems to be the trigger.
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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    Fire pressurises then ruptures a storage tank sending a dense cloud of LPG above Upper Explosive Limit into the air. The cloud dilutes with air, coming below the UEL, meets flame and explodes.

    Effectively a fuel/air explosive.

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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    Quote Posted by happyuk (here)
    Fire pressurises then ruptures a storage tank sending a dense cloud of LPG above Upper Explosive Limit into the air. The cloud dilutes with air, coming below the UEL, meets flame and explodes.

    Effectively a fuel/air explosive.
    this seems correct, look at any video of us blowing up arms factories in the 'stan or iraq
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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    Several injured after massive explosion rocks Lebanese capital Beirut
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    Unhappy Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    Lebanese PM: 2,750 tonnes of Ammonium Nitrate caused ‘disaster in every sense’

    Hassan Diab says nearly 3,000 tonnes of agricultural fertilizer stored for years in a portside warehouse blew up in massive explosion heard in Cyprus, 150 miles away

    BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Two enormous explosions devastated Beirut’s port on Tuesday, leaving at least 73 people dead and thousands injured, shaking distant buildings and spreading panic and chaos across the Lebanese capital.

    The second blast sent an enormous orange fireball into the sky, immediately followed by a tornado-like shockwave that flattened the port and swept the city, shattering windows kilometres (miles) away.

    Prime Minister Hassan Diab said that 2,750 tonnes of the agricultural fertilizer ammonium nitrate that had been stored for years in a portside warehouse had blown up, sparking “a disaster in every sense of the word.”

    Bloodied and dazed wounded people stumbled among the debris, glass shards and burning buildings in central Beirut as the health ministry reported 73 dead and 3,700 injured across wide parts of the country’s biggest city.

    “What happened today will not pass without accountability,” said Diab. “Those responsible for this catastrophe will pay the price.”

    General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim earlier said the “highly explosive material” had been confiscated years earlier and stored in the warehouse, just minutes walk from Beirut’s shopping and nightlife districts.


    Lebanese army commandos deploy in the partially destroyed trendy neighbourhood of Mar Mikhael following an explosion at the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020.

    The blasts were so massive they shook the entire city and could be heard throughout the small country, and as far away as Nicosia on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus, 240 kilometres (150 miles) away.

    A soldier at the port, where relatives of the missing scrambled for news of their loved ones, told AFP: “It’s a catastrophe inside. There are corpses on the ground. Ambulances are still lifting the dead.”

    “It was like an atomic bomb,” said Makrouhie Yerganian, a retired schoolteacher in her mid-70s who has lived near the port for decades.

    “I’ve experienced everything, but nothing like this before,” even during the country’s 1975-1990 civil war, she said.

    “All the buildings around here have collapsed.”


    People evacuate wounded after of a massive explosion in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020.

    Her 91-year-old uncle, who lived in the same building, was wounded in the blast and later died.

    AFP correspondents across the city saw shop and apartment windows blown out and streets covered with broken glass.

    Photos posted online even showed damage to the inside of Beirut airport’s terminal, some nine kilometres from the explosion.

    Hospitals already struggling with the country’s coronavirus outbreak were overwhelmed by the influx of wounded people and the country’s Red Cross called for urgent blood donations.

    We saw the mushroom

    As the national defense council declared Beirut a disaster zone, Diab appealed to Lebanon’s allies to “stand by” the country and “help us treat these deep wounds”.
    Condolences poured in from across the world with Gulf nations, the United States and even Lebanon’s arch foe Israel offering to send aid.

    AFP video footage showed areas of near-complete devastation, with cars flipped onto their roofs like children’s toys, warehouses flattened and survivors drenched from head to toe in their own blood.

    “We heard an explosion, then we saw the mushroom,” said a Beirut resident who witnessed the second deafening explosion from her balcony in the city’s Mansourieh district.

    “The force of the blast threw us backwards into the apartment.”

    An AFP correspondent at the scene minutes after said every shop in the Hamra commercial district had sustained damage, with entire storefronts destroyed and many cars wrecked.

    A huge blaze sent up black smoke from the port area, as helicopters dumped water on burning buildings.


    Firefighter douse a blaze at the scene of an explosion at the port of Lebanon’s capital Beirut, on August 4, 2020.

    A ship moored off the port was on fire, and the blasts also damaged a vessel deployed with United Nations peacekeeping force UNIFIL and injured some of its personnel.

    Like an earthquake

    Hundreds immediately shared their shock and grief on social media.

    “Buildings are shaking,” tweeted one resident, while another wrote: “An enormous, deafening explosion just engulfed Beirut. Heard it from miles away.”

    Online footage from a Lebanese newspaper office showed blown out windows, scattered furniture and demolished interior paneling.

    The explosions hit a country already reeling from its worst economic crisis in decades which has left nearly half of the population in poverty, as well as from the coronavirus pandemic.

    Lebanon’s economy has collapsed in recent months, with the local currency plummeting, businesses closing en masse and poverty soaring at the same alarming rate as unemployment.

    Charity Save the Children said “the incident could not have occurred at a worse time”.

    The explosions came three days before a UN tribunal’s verdict on the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri, who was killed in a huge 2005 truck bomb attack.

    Four alleged members of the Shiite Muslim terror group Hezbollah are on trial in absentia at the court in the Netherlands over the huge Beirut bombing that killed Sunni billionaire Hariri and 21 other people.

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    Last edited by Bill Ryan; 5th August 2020 at 12:17. Reason: deleted duplicate text
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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    Quote Posted by Star Mariner (here)
    They're saying an old stockpile of ammonium nitrate caused the explosion. Which makes a lot more sense than a tactical nuke that some social media numpties are claiming. For a start, even a small tactical nuke would level everything within at least half a mile of ground zero. We'd also never get to see any of these youtube and twitter clips at all. If an EMP didn't fry every phone instantly, the people who shot the footage would never get to upload it. They'd be dead from radiation burns.
    The nukes used on 9/11 didn't level everything within a half mile of ground zero.

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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    Quote Posted by DaveToo (here)
    Quote Posted by Star Mariner (here)
    They're saying an old stockpile of ammonium nitrate caused the explosion. Which makes a lot more sense than a tactical nuke that some social media numpties are claiming. For a start, even a small tactical nuke would level everything within at least half a mile of ground zero. We'd also never get to see any of these youtube and twitter clips at all. If an EMP didn't fry every phone instantly, the people who shot the footage would never get to upload it. They'd be dead from radiation burns.
    The nukes used on 9/11 didn't level everything within a half mile of ground zero.
    Highly doubt there was anything isotope related used there.

    conventional stuff would easily be used to re-create a similar scenario.... (not sure what's what however... just offering info).

    I do agree, there are small tactical nukes that do not create the damage indicated in the quote( .5 mile damage) you are referring too; but the explosions caught on camera do not meet any of those profiles.

    For reference, ~4,000 pounds (2 tons) of ammonium nitrate were used at the OKC bombing by T.Mcvay.... this was over 2,700 tons and there seems to be corroborating records to prove that.

    also, the radiation stuff is wrong and the EMP stuff is vastly incorrect (and shows a huge lack of understanding).
    Last edited by TargeT; 5th August 2020 at 05:20.
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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    Quote Posted by TargeT (here)
    Quote Posted by DaveToo (here)
    Quote Posted by Star Mariner (here)
    They're saying an old stockpile of ammonium nitrate caused the explosion. Which makes a lot more sense than a tactical nuke that some social media numpties are claiming. For a start, even a small tactical nuke would level everything within at least half a mile of ground zero. We'd also never get to see any of these youtube and twitter clips at all. If an EMP didn't fry every phone instantly, the people who shot the footage would never get to upload it. They'd be dead from radiation burns.
    The nukes used on 9/11 didn't level everything within a half mile of ground zero.
    Highly doubt there was anything isotope related used there.

    conventional stuff would easily be used to re-create a similar scenario.... (not sure what's what however... just offering info).

    I do agree, there are small tactical nukes that do not create the damage indicated in the quote you are referring too; but the explosions caught on camera do not meet any of those profiles.

    also, the radiation stuff is wrong and the EMP stuff is vastly incorrect (and shows a huge lack of understanding).
    Not sure which explosion you are referring to?
    Beirut or 9/11?

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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    Quote Posted by DaveToo (here)
    Quote Posted by TargeT (here)
    Quote Posted by DaveToo (here)
    Quote Posted by Star Mariner (here)
    They're saying an old stockpile of ammonium nitrate caused the explosion. Which makes a lot more sense than a tactical nuke that some social media numpties are claiming. For a start, even a small tactical nuke would level everything within at least half a mile of ground zero. We'd also never get to see any of these youtube and twitter clips at all. If an EMP didn't fry every phone instantly, the people who shot the footage would never get to upload it. They'd be dead from radiation burns.
    The nukes used on 9/11 didn't level everything within a half mile of ground zero.
    Highly doubt there was anything isotope related used there.

    conventional stuff would easily be used to re-create a similar scenario.... (not sure what's what however... just offering info).

    I do agree, there are small tactical nukes that do not create the damage indicated in the quote you are referring too; but the explosions caught on camera do not meet any of those profiles.

    also, the radiation stuff is wrong and the EMP stuff is vastly incorrect (and shows a huge lack of understanding).
    Not sure which explosion you are referring to?
    Beirut or 9/11?
    both honestly.

    2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate is pretty godamn insane... the question I'd REALLY like answered is why it was stored basically "in the city" I highly doubt the fire works factory (and it did seem to be ) ever had that amount of raw explosive material; good to question... but perhaps things are deeper and more.... timely, than we consider.
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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    Lebanon's Prime Minsiter Hassan Diab has said it is "unacceptable" that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate were being stored in a warehouse.

    Quote I will not rest until we find the person responsible for what happened so we can hold them to account and impose the most severe punishment
    , the prime minister was quoted as saying by an official Twitter account.

    Quote It is unacceptable that a shipment of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate has been present for six years in a warehouse, without taking preventive measures and endangering the safety of citizens
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/worl...-east-53656328

    Does anyone else have a problem with these statements?

    To me it seems odd that he is ALREADY pointing the finger before any kind of investigation has taken place.

    Storing that amount of explosive is merely "unacceptable"? Not "outrageous", or "hugely negligent"?

    And how does he know it is merely a "person" who is solely responsible? Not persons, nor an organisation?

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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    Quote Posted by happyuk (here)
    Does anyone else have a problem with these statements?

    To me it seems odd that he is ALREADY pointing the finger before any kind of investigation has taken place.

    Storing that amount of explosive is merely "unacceptable"? Not "outrageous", or "hugely negligent"?

    And how does he know it is merely a "person" who is solely responsible? Not persons, nor an organisation?
    hehe, yup

    Quote Posted by TargeT (here)
    ... but perhaps things are deeper and more.... timely, than we consider.
    Big things some times pan out very interestingly, I think the next few days will tell us if it's just negligence or not. (I've been to MANY countries, this wouldn't overly surprise me... even western countries do not handle bureaucracy well.)
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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    "May explode due to nearby detonations."

    Here are some interesting details. Emphasis is mine.

    Quote Beirut Blast Wrap-up

    Yesterday 2.750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse at the port of Beirut, Lebanon, exploded. The blast killed more than 100 people and wounded more than 4,000. Many buildings in Beirut were severely damaged. The pressure wave broke windows as far 10 miles away. Beirut's port is mostly destroyed. Lebanon's national grain reserve, stored in grain silos next to the explosion, is gone.

    This comes on top of an economic and currency meltdown in Lebanon and during a exponential growth phase of the Coronovirus epidemic.

    In 2013 Lebanese authorities arrested a ship (pdf) that had been abandoned by its owner:
    On 23/9/2013, m/v Rhosus, flying the Moldovian flag, sailed from Batumi Port, Georgia heading to Biera in Mozambique carrying 2,750 tons of Ammonium Nitrate in bulk.

    En route, the vessel faced technical problems forcing the Master to enter Beirut Port. Upon inspection of the vessel by Port State Control, the vessel was forbidden from sailing. Most crew except the Master and four crew members were repatriated and shortly afterwards the vessel was abandoned by her owners after charterers and cargo concern lost interest in the cargo. The vessel quickly ran out of stores, bunker and provisions.
    ...
    Owing to the risks associated with retaining the Ammonium Nitrate on board the vessel, the port authorities discharged the cargo onto the port’s warehouses. The vessel and cargo remain to date in port awaiting auctioning and/or proper disposal.
    The ammonium nitrate was stored in a quayside warehouse. The picture shows the 1,000 kilogram big bags labeled "Nitroprill HD" in bad storage conditions at the 'Hanger 12' warehouse in Beirut.



    "Nitroprill HD" is a knock-off product of the trademarked Nitropril, a premium grade porous prilled ammonium nitrate manufactured and sold by the Orica Mining Services in Australia. It is used as a commercial explosive in mining and quarrying. The safety sheet of the original product says it "May explode under confinement and high temperature, but not readily detonated. May explode due to nearby detonations."

    --- snip ---
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/0...p-up.html#more

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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    Here's an interesting report from the Guardian Moscow correspondent about the owner of the impounded ship that was carrying the ammonium nitrate.

    ~~~
    Little is known about the Russian owner of the Rhosus, the cargo ship impounded in Beirut in 2014, whose captain had referred to its freight of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate fertiliser as a “floating bomb.”

    That ammonium nitrate is believed to have fueled the devastating explosion that has left more than 100 dead in Beirut.

    Former crewmembers said the ship was owned by Igor Grechushkin, a Russian national currently believed to be living in Cyprus, where he holds either citizenship or residency. Grechushkin, a native of the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, is reported to have managed Teto Shipping, which owned the Rhosus.

    The ship arrived in Beirut in 2013 while sailing from Georgia to Mozambique. It was prevented from leaving the Beirut port in 2014 over an unspecified dispute, either because the ship was deemed not seaworthy or because the owner had failed to pay the necessary fees to the port.

    It was then that Grechushkin is said to have walked away from the ship, refusing to answer calls or negotiate with the port authorities for the release of his sailors.

    In complaints to the press in 2014, former crewmembers said they had been “abandoned” in Beirut and had not been paid their wages for nearly a year. “The owner [of the ship] has virtually abandoned the ship and its crew,” wrote the ship’s former captain. “Salaries are not paid, supplies are not purchased. The shipowner has refused the cargo.”

    A deleted LinkedIn profile lists Grechushkin as living in Cyprus and as working as a manager at Unimar Service Ltd. Calls to a company with a similar name and profile, Unimar Safety Services and Equipment, were not answered on Wednesday. Calls to a number for Grechushkin listed by the aggrieved crewmembers also went unanswered on Wednesday.

    The letter, which was sent to Russian journalists by the Rhosus’ former captain in 2014, also complained about being “held hostage” aboard the ship. The Beirut authorities “don’t want an abandoned ship at port, especially with a cargo of explosives, which is what ammonium nitrate is. That is, this is a floating bomb, and the crew is a hostage aboard this bomb.”

    The crew, mostly comprised of Ukrianian sailors, were held aboard the ship for nearly a year before they were released. The ammonium nitrate was confiscated and held at the port in a warehouse.

    The Russian television station Ren TV published a photograph on Wednesday of a man it said was Grechushkin in tight fitting jeans and sunglasses sitting astride a motorcycle. The television station did not indicate the source of the photograph.

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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    Beirut explosion likely a catastrophic ‘accident similar to 2001 Toulouse fertilizer factory blast,’ detonations expert tells RT

    RT
    5 Aug, 2020 02:20
    Updated 6 hours ago
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    Smoke rises from the site of an explosion in Beirut, Lebanon August 4, 2020 © Reuters / Mohamed Azakir

    The massive blast that shook Beirut was likely caused by a fatal mishandling of hazardous materials, mirroring an explosion that leveled a fertilizer plant in France some two decades ago, a chemist and detonations expert told RT.

    Tuesday’s explosion tore through a port chemical depot and sent a towering fireball and mushroom cloud into the sky over Beirut, leaving more than 70 people dead and some 4,000 injured. Though US President Donald Trump has mused that the incident was an “attack” caused by “some kind of bomb,” Frolov – who heads the combustion and explosion department at the Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow – said he’s confident the blast was a catastrophic accident.

    “The sequence of events shows this was an accidental explosion for sure,” Frolov, who also leads the Semenov Institute’s detonations lab, told RT in an interview. “You shouldn’t store such amounts of hazardous materials in one place. This is forbidden.”
    If you have hazardous materials somewhere in store, and if you violate the conditions of storage, you can expect an ignition source will always appear.
    While the exact cause of the blast has yet to be determined, Lebanese officials say that some 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate had been improperly stored at the port for nearly six years, with the country’s President Michel Aoun vowing “severe penalties” for those responsible for the chemical cache. Commonly used in fertilizers, ammonium nitrate is also the main ingredient in some industrial-grade explosives, such as ANFO, and is prone to violent combustion if stored under the wrong conditions.

    Frolov pointed to press reports stating that the chemical warehouse was located not far from a fireworks storage and other hazardous material facilities, calling it a “very, very dangerous mix,” requiring only a small spark to set off a major secondary blast.

    “It could be static electricity, it could be an open fire, a cigarette… it could be a shock or electrical discharge, even some lightning,” he said, as officials have yet to confirm what caused the initial blaze. Some local reports, citing security sources, alleged it could be a welding mishap.
    This accidental ignition source will cause a fire, and during the fire you have some gasification of the existing material, and the accumulation of these combustibles in the atmosphere... You have escalation of fire, and then you can have the secondary explosion.
    Recalling the 2001 disaster at a fertilizer factory in Toulouse, France, where some 300 tons of ammonium nitrate combusted, leveling the entire facility, Frolov said the two deadly blasts are comparable in destructive force, estimating the Beirut explosion to be equal to “tens of tons of high explosives.”
    “What I saw reminded me of the explosion in Toulouse. There were very similar consequences,” Frolov said, noting that the 2001 blast was equivalent to 20 to 40 tons of TNT.

    “In that explosion about 30 people were killed immediately, and about 3,000 were injured. So this gives me an exact parallel, that this explosion is very close, by its strength, to that one.”

    Frolov also refuted speculation and concerns over a huge “mushroom-shaped cloud,” explaining it was common in the case of such a powerful conventional explosion.
    “This is actually the explosion itself… There was some special shape, and this shape is characteristic of very strong explosions, where you have not a spherical wave, but the wave with a ‘mach stem’ it is called… near the ground.”
    This is not a Hiroshima-like [blast] like some people say, because there were kilotons [in that case], but here’s tens of tons.
    As first responders in Beirut work through the night to pull survivors from the rubble, and investigators pinpoint the precise cause of the blast, Frolov said the tragic incident will come as “a very, very large and sad lesson for everybody,” stressing the need for proper storage of volatile and dangerous chemicals.

    -------------------------------------------------------------

    I vaguely recall there was a similar explosion in the USA that blasted retirement homes and where fertilizer tanks were ignited either by a rocket or a meteorite... so the arguing went.
    Last edited by Gwin Ru; 5th August 2020 at 19:47.

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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    ...









    Even before the blast, the country had been devastated by the virus pandemic, a crippling economic collapse, and government corruption. The destruction of the nation's top port suggests the primary channels for imports and exports have been completely severed. The ability of the country to feed 7 million people could transform into a significant health crisis in the months ahead.



    Epoch Times estimates 85% of the country's grain, mostly stored in silos at the port, was also destroyed.
    Last edited by Gwin Ru; 5th August 2020 at 14:38.

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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    It wasn't Ammonium Nitrate...



    Where have we seen this before?


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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    It appears the Hezbollah rumours from last last night was little more than political sabre-rattling.



    HRW chief jumps to blame Hezbollah for devastating Beirut blasts – and backpedals immediately

    Human Rights Watch head Kenneth Roth was quick to join a social media chorus blaming Hezbollah for deadly explosions in Beirut on Tuesday. Perhaps realizing the claim lacked a shred of evidence, he soon deleted it.
    Roth rushed to blame Hezbollah for the huge explosions near the port of Beirut, blasts which killed at least 50 people and are believed to have wounded over 3,000 more.

    “Is this Hezbollah’s way of saying don’t mess with us for allegedly killing former Lebanese PM Hariri?” he asked in a tweet posted almost immediately after news of the explosions hit social media on Tuesday.

    More: https://www.rt.com/news/497108-hrw-d...-beirut-blast/
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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    Scroll down to Video #11. The explosion very close up. How the witness survived, if they even did, I've no idea.



    A still of the frontage of this warehouse.

    Click image for larger version

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    Cross-reference with this image of purportedly the same warehouse with the circled sign on the door.

    Click image for larger version

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    The image has surfaced on social media and it could well be the same warehouse. The bags say 'Nitroprill'.



    Could be the smoking gun.
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    Default Re: Beirut: Many dead after huge explosion in Lebanese capital

    My initial reaction on seeing the vast devastation and no dark clouds and the mushroom was that it was a sabotage or a terrorist attack.
    It is strange that if this happened some years ago, there would have been many posts suggesting so, even of the nuclear kind. But so far on this thread there is no suggestion of conspiracy. It must be that the majority is correct this time, it is just an accident.

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