37
votes
Beirut hit by massive explosions, killing over 135 people and injuring over 5000
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- Title
- Massive explosions in Beirut kill and wound many, cause extensive damage
- Published
- Aug 4 2020
- Word count
- 219 words
Some dimensional analysis calculations done by users over at /r/physics:
https://redd.it/i3qimd
https://redd.it/i3otmk
Estimates put the explosion in the 1kt range.
New reporting indicates that a shipment of highly-explosive sodium nitrate that was confiscated from a ship more than a year ago exploded in a warehouse located in the port.
Depends on how you want to define "small nuclear bomb". Hiroshima is considered small by modern standards and was 13-18kt. The hypothetical "suitcase nuke" is 2.5kt. Ammonium nitrate has a relative effectiveness of 42% compared to TNT, by weight.
Another point of comparison is that the "Mother of All Bombs" , the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal, has an effective yield of 11 tons of TNT. There's also a "Father of All Bombs" built by Russia with a claimed yield of 44 tons of TNT.
At that 42% theoretical efficiency, this explosion would have been ~1100 tons of TNT. So anywhere from 25 to 100 times more powerful than the largest non-nuclear bombs ever produced.
Some new updates and photos on Axios - death and injury tolls are up to 135 and 5000 respectively now, and Beirut's governor says that 250,000 - 300,000 people are homeless from the damage.
That's over 10% of the city, in a city where 16% are already living in poverty. Nearly 5% of the country where 25% are already living in poverty. Really heartbreaking.
Not much is known, Here is a good twitter thread w/ multiple video of the incident.
It appears a warehouse caught fire near the Beirut's port,
ammunition orfireworks can be heard going off before the big blast hits the cityThe videos of it are crazy, but the thing that really communicates the magnitude of it are the comments in the reddit thread saying they could hear the explosion in Cyprus, which is over 100 miles away.
Here's a pretty good (early) supercut of videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzIuaoc-UYs
LOUD video from Apple News, capturing the moment of the explosion from about 1 KM away during a bridal photoshoot. (Distant blast at 0:12, sound hits at 0:14).
Article text
A Lebanese bride had to run for cover as she was posing for wedding photographs with her groom in central Beirut just moments before the massive explosion rocked the capital.
Israa Seblani was posing in her wedding gown in a nearly empty square approximately one kilometre from the city's port on Tuesday when the blast hit.
Footage captured by the couple's wedding videographer, Mahmoud Nakib, shows the camera slightly shake as it pans down the train of Seblani's dress before the explosion occurs.
Nakib keeps the camera rolling as the explosion blows away Seblani's bouquet, which was placed on the train of her dress, billowing out the rest of the gown behind her.
The shock wave sends Nakib stumbling across the street but he manages to return the camera's view to the original spot where Seblani was posing, capturing the groom guiding her as they flee to safety.
The square -- quiet just moments before -- is pictured through a haze of smoke as the bride and groom dodge overturned tables and broken glass before turning a corner.
Nakib posted a second video following the explosion on his Facebook page showing the groom and another man helping Seblani with her dress as they continue down the street. Alarms are going off in nearby buildings and the street is seen littered with debris.
Nakib told news verification agency Storyful that he and the couple were unharmed by the explosion. He said they took refuge at a house before dining at a small restaurant later that evening.
Officials say the explosion was caused by a fire that set off more than 2,750 tonnes of explosive ammonium nitrate at a warehouse in Beirut’s port. The blast killed at least 135 people and wounded about 5,000 others, according to Lebanon’s health minister.
EDIT: Satellite and aerial photographs from the Globe and Mail, showing the crater, port and what an overturned cruise ship. Two more ships that were docked right beside the warehouse are gone, as if obliterated.
There's also a YouTube link.
Definitely better, thanks. I'm actually just going to paste the article text into my post so people don't have to deal with that site's heinous page layout.
It's an amp link, if you click "go to original" it loads in a much better layout : https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/a-bridal-photoshoot-captured-the-moment-of-massive-explosion-in-beirut-1.5052259
Thanks. Replaced the original version.
Ya mind putting a warning next to the link? That just about wrecked my speakers. The voices in the video are really quiet and no where near what the mic could capture.
I had considered it, but I thought nobody was going to be listening to a video of that explosion with their sound turned up! Sure, I'll add it in, though; it's not a bother.
At least 10 dead
Port is destroyed
Nizar Najarian General Director of the Phalange Party was killed in the explosion
Photo round-ups in The Guardian and The Atlantic.
Both have content that is quite graphic / NSFL / heartbreaking.