Beirut Explosion

I kind of recall a Far Side cartoon where there's a guy stood outside an ACME Firework Factory and next door is ACME Tobacco factory or maybe it was Joe's Wild West Shooting Gallery or something equally absurd like that. 

  On 8/5/2020 at 10:51 AM, zkom said:

Jots down: "Never live near any docks".

Finnish morning TV kind of off-handedly said that it was ammonium nitrate storage that had been neglected for years and people didn't even know about it's existence but I don't know where they got that information. So, it might be that whoever was storing fireworks didn't know about the existence of the ammonium nitrate right next door. Given that Lebanon generally has high levels of corruption it doesn't sound too implausible to me.

Yeah, apparently 2750 tons(!) of ammonium nitrate had been confiscated from a Moldovan ship in 2014 and sitting around unattended since then. JFC.

  Quote

Letters show officials knew of danger posed by ammonium nitrate cargo at Beirut port six years before deadly blast.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/officials-knew-danger-beirut-port-years-200805032416684.html

how in the fuck can this happen?

  On 8/5/2020 at 3:42 PM, Ivan Ooze said:

how in the fuck can this happen?

"The cause of the explosion is still not clear, but many Lebanese were quick to point out what they believe to be the root causes; immense mismanagement in a broken state run by a corrupt political class who they say treat the country's inhabitants with contempt."

fuuck

Sounds like another case of a disaster which (in theory) could have been easily prevented. But then again, given the circumstances that's like saying a Trump presidency could have been easily prevented.

  On 8/5/2020 at 1:37 AM, Adamovich said:

70 dead, about 4000 injured now

 

aw man that sucks, hope they're fine 

just heard a report on NPR that 250,000 people are homeless now as a result of the explosion

A relative has Lebanese neighbors who, in some weird neighborly fashion, shared some phone videos from the blast zone their relatives sent. Horrific stuff, people were literally blasted to pieces. Lots of people are searching for their family members in the ruins. Mildly interested in what explanation they'll pull out for not dealing with this for 6 years. 

Lebanon was already on a verge of revolution since the protests started in 2019. If the explosion was a result of the corrupt officials and politicians that people were already protesting against this might push the whole country over the edge. The last time Lebanon had a civil war in 70s and 80s it was a fucking horrible mess.

This kind of stuff happened in France in 2001 (10 days after 9/11) at the AZF factory in Toulouse.

Apparently the cargo ship that contained the ammonium nitrate was already in news in 2013 when the sailors were stranded on the ship and they already warned that the cargo is dangerous

Then it was stored without safety measures in Beirut harbor that has been a center of much of the corruption scandals that sparked the protests in Beirut last year

  On 8/5/2020 at 10:30 PM, zkom said:

Then it was stored without safety measures in Beirut harbor that has been a center of much of the corruption scandals that sparked the protests in Beirut last year

 

Well, at least that problem's solved, cause there is no harbor anymore.

A nuke would spread radiation and make the place unlivable for a few hundred years right?  

So If a dirty bomb goes off in Manhattan all those 40 million dollar penthouses would become worthless just because of the radiation.

I don't know, im asking

Also, That shockwave. Could it make you deaf?

I guess Hiroshima is an example that im wrong and you can live in a city that's been nuked.

  On 8/6/2020 at 1:11 AM, marf said:

Also, That shockwave. Could it make you deaf?

the sometimes extreme velocity of the shockwave can burst ear drums, cause internal bleeding etc etc.. basically just wreck a human being if close enough. 

explosion is basically massive change in pressure right? 

  On 8/6/2020 at 1:42 AM, marf said:

I guess Hiroshima is an example that im wrong and you can live in a city that's been nuked.

for a little while. then you die from radiation poisoning. 

the grain silos at the port were full. now half destroyed. it's the large white buildings you see in the videos/photos. 

fucking sucks. the port was a lifeline. 

  On 8/5/2020 at 12:48 PM, Amen Warrior said:

Someone just held a fart in too long imo

Beirut before & after

https://gfycat.com/afraidsinfulcoypu

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Would be nice to have less jokes in this thread, imo.  I get that its an internet forum, and the problem seems distant from most of us.  And that its hard to even process something so out of the ordinary.  But we should all keep in mind its a massive and ongoing tragic event.

This article has links to donate to help, for those who can do so >
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/06/beirut-explosion-how-you-can-help-lebanon-victims-fund-donate-donations-food-relief