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Beirut explosion: at least 100 dead and 4,000 wounded


Homelander

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BEIRUT (REUTERS) - Lebanese rescue workers are digging through rubble looking for survivors of a powerful warehouse explosion that shook the capital Beirut on Tuesday (Aug 4), killing 100 people and injuring nearly 4,000 in a toll that officials expect to rise.

 

The blast at port warehouses storing highly explosive material was the most powerful in years in Beirut, a city already reeling from an economic crisis and a surge in coronavirus infections.

 

It threatens a new humanitarian crisis in a nation that hosts hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and which is already grappling with economic meltdown under one of the world’s biggest debt burdens.

 

Residents said glass was broken in neighbourhoods on Beirut’s Mediterranean coast and inland suburbs several kilometres away. In Cyprus, a Mediterranean island 180km across the sea from Beirut, residents heard the blast. One resident in Nicosia said his house and window shutters shook.

 

The blast revived memories of a 1975-90 civil war and its aftermath, when Lebanese endured heavy shelling, car bombings and Israeli air raids. Some residents thought an earthquake had struck.

 

"The blast blew me off metres away. I was in a daze and was all covered in blood. It brought back the vision of another explosion I witnessed against the US embassy in 1983," said Ms Huda Baroudi, a Beirut designer.

 

Those filming the incident from high buildings 2km from the port were thrown backwards by the shock. Bleeding people were seen running and shouting for help through clouds of smoke and dust in streets littered with damaged buildings, flying debris, and wrecked cars and furniture.

SMOKE AND FIREBALL

Images showed port buildings reduced to tangled masonry, devastating the main entry point to a country that relies on food imports to feed its population of more than six million.

 

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President Michel Aoun said that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, used in fertilisers and bombs, had been stored for six years at the port without safety measures, and he said that was “unacceptable”.

 

 

He called for an emergency Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Officials did not say what caused the blaze that set off the blast. A security source and local media said it was started by welding work being carried out on a hole in the warehouse.

 

“What we are witnessing is a huge catastrophe,” the head of Lebanon’s Red Cross George Kettani told broadcaster Mayadeen. “There are victims and casualties everywhere.”

 

Hours after the blast, which struck shortly after 6pm  (11pm Singapore time), a fire still blazed in the port district, casting an orange glow across the night sky as helicopters hovered and ambulance sirens sounded across the capital.

 

Prime Minister Hassan Diab promised there would be accountability for the deadly blast at the “dangerous warehouse”, adding “those responsible will pay the price”.

 

The United States embassy in Beirut warned residents about reports of toxic gases released by the blast, urging people to stay indoors and wear masks if available.  

 

“There are many people missing. People are asking the emergency department about their loved ones and it is difficult to search at night because there is no electricity,” Health Minister Hamad Hasan told Reuters.

Edited by Homelander
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4 hours ago, Homelander said:

President Michel Aoun said that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, used in fertilisers and bombs, had been stored for six years at the port without safety measures, and he said that was “unacceptable”.

 

fugging crazy to store 2750 tonnes of NH4NO3.

 

wonder if anyone calculated many kg of TNT is that equal to?

Edited by meng.huat
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WHY SUCH A BIG BLAST?

Lebanon's Prime Minister Hassan Diab said 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, an agricultural fertiliser, stored in a port-side warehouse had blown up, sparking "a disaster in every sense of the word".

Ammonium nitrate is an odourless crystalline substance that has been the cause of numerous industrial explosions over the decades.

When combined with fuel oils, it creates a potent explosive widely used in the construction industry, but also by insurgent groups such as the Taliban for improvised explosive devices.

Lebanon's General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim said the material had been confiscated years earlier and stored in the warehouse, located close to Beirut's shopping and nightlife districts.

 

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/beirut-lebanon-explosion-what-we-know-12992560

 

 

confiscated explosives, stored in an old warehouse?

Edited by meng.huat
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7 minutes ago, meng.huat said:

 

2750kg NH4NO3 = 1100kg TNT...

 

so simple to store them in an unsecured old warehouse?

 

thats why i dont buy the lebanese explanation.

 

the most logical explanation will be that this is hezbollah's stockpile from iranians, mossad got wind of it and so decided to infiltrate and blow it.

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4 minutes ago, socrates469bc said:

 

thats why i dont buy the lebanese explanation.

 

the most logical explanation will be that this is hezbollah's stockpile from iranians, mossad got wind of it and so decided to infiltrate and blow it.

 

this tallies with what was reported by CNA.

 

7 minutes ago, meng.huat said:

WHY SUCH A BIG BLAST?

Lebanon's Prime Minister Hassan Diab said 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, an agricultural fertiliser, stored in a port-side warehouse had blown up, sparking "a disaster in every sense of the word".

Ammonium nitrate is an odourless crystalline substance that has been the cause of numerous industrial explosions over the decades.

When combined with fuel oils, it creates a potent explosive widely used in the construction industry, but also by insurgent groups such as the Taliban for improvised explosive devices.

Lebanon's General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim said the material had been confiscated years earlier and stored in the warehouse, located close to Beirut's shopping and nightlife districts.

 

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/beirut-lebanon-explosion-what-we-know-12992560

 

 

confiscated explosives, stored in an old warehouse?

 

 

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7 minutes ago, meng.huat said:

WHY SUCH A BIG BLAST?

Lebanon's Prime Minister Hassan Diab said 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, an agricultural fertiliser, stored in a port-side warehouse had blown up, sparking "a disaster in every sense of the word".

Ammonium nitrate is an odourless crystalline substance that has been the cause of numerous industrial explosions over the decades.

When combined with fuel oils, it creates a potent explosive widely used in the construction industry, but also by insurgent groups such as the Taliban for improvised explosive devices.

Lebanon's General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim said the material had been confiscated years earlier and stored in the warehouse, located close to Beirut's shopping and nightlife districts.

 

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/beirut-lebanon-explosion-what-we-know-12992560

 

 

confiscated explosives, stored in an old warehouse?

 

Middleeast way of smoking ppl

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