Authorities are blaming the huge explosion in Beirut on improperly stored ammonium nitrate fertilizer set off by an careless welder.
I once looked into using AM to open some ponds in the Louisiana marsh, and it had to be mixed with fuel oil about 1 part to 3 parts. And then you needed dynamite to set it off, so I am skeptical of that explanation.
On the videos, it looked a lot like a fuel/air explosion to me.
Anyone with an informed opinion?
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
I had seen a report that fireworks may have been involved. But that is all I can offer.
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Far too soon to determine if this was accidental or intentional.
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Someone in the WH, who shall remain nameless, referred to it as an attack. State and Defense Department officials have steered away form that.
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Found this on CNN. Maybe helpful.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/middleeast/ammonium-nitrate-beirut-blast-intl/index.html
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Good information in the CNN article. Saw something similar on another site. Video and witnesses said there were two explosions. One less powerful followed by the big one. Watching the video that USA Today had,,,,, after the first explosion there appears to be multiple flashes of light along with fire and then the whole thing blew. I’m not a chemist but I wonder how stable the stuff is when one stores 2750 tons of it for 6 years in a warehouse.
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“Iām not a chemist but I wonder how stable the stuff is when one stores 2750 tons of it for 6 years in a warehouse.”
Same thing that happens in Texas, Nevada, St. Louis, and dozens of other places here with improper storage. What’s scary is you don’t know what XYZ Inc., is storing in that metal building 1/4 mile from your house. Or, for that matter, what your neighbors have in the garage.
Same thing happened in West, Texas. Right next to the high school.
Hey, is Smith Douglas still in Chesapeake?
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I don’t even want to think what my neighbor may have in her garage.
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Ammonium nitrate is an oxidizer. It can’t do anything by itself. For an explosion it has to be mixed with a fuel of some type,
The Daisy Cutter bombs used to create landing zones in the jungles of Vietnam were Ammonium nitrate mixed with aluminum powder and liquid polystyrene.
Looking at the Beirut video, it appears there is a grain elevator adjacent to the warehouse. An interaction between the ammonium nitrate and grain dust might be an explanation.
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None of us are experts, but we keep speculating.
According to reporting, including video, there was a smaller fire adjacent to the storage site. Cause of that fire was not known the last time I looked.
The government gave investigators 4 days to determine “wha happend”. Guess we’ll know something by Sunday or Monday.
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See Texas City 1947. That was ammonium nitrate too, and it threw a ship’s anchor over a mile.
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Without regard to the loss of life, it was a spectacular explosion. You could see the shock wave condense the moisture right out of the air. That’s the Initial cloud you see expanding out and up from the center.
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Yea, that was a helluva blast to see on video.
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Better on video than live and in person. š
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After viewing a few video’s while the warehouse was already on fire…
you could see several small explosions (likely 50 gal drums cooking off). Then comes the big KA-BOOM.
I’m thinking this was not intentional.
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I guess Hanlon’s Razor applies
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