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No definitive word yet on if this is an accident or a terrorist attack, or what, but Trump is claiming that the military has told him it was a bomb. We all know how reliable he is as a source...

The Lebanese Prime minister has said that this “will not pass without accountability” and “those responsible will pay for what happened.” But it's not clear if he's talking about terrorism, or unsafe conditions in the warehouse that exploded, saying that an investigation will result in “revelations that will be announced about this dangerous warehouse which has been present since 2014,”

figmentPez said:

Trump is claiming that the military has told him it was a bomb

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Typical talking out his ass. Other news sources are saying the warehouse was stuffed to the gills with ammonium nitrate.

DarkAudit said:

Typical talking out his ass. Other news sources are saying the warehouse was stuffed to the gills with ammonium nitrate.

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Doesn't mean it wasn't a planned attack though. That'd make it the perfect target.

"Never attribute to Malice that which can be easily explained by stupidity or ignorance." - Hanlon's Razor.

Holy crap, that's the kind of thing you usually see in CG in Michael Bay movies. To see it in real life must be horrifying.

Defense officials say they didn't tell cheeto shit when he started blathering about the explosion.

Supposedly 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate stored with no safety protocols.

Storage before the explosion:

HCGLNS said:

Supposedly 2700 tons of ammonium nitrate stored with no safety protocols.

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Texas remembers what it's like.

--Patrick

Blast is estimated to have been about 3 KT, or about 1/5th of the Hiroshima bomb. That's a lot of boom.

So, just a PSA, then... if you know of any other location(s) warehousing thousands of pounds of ammonium nitrate, you might want to see about getting them to split it up into several smaller warehouses, or something.

--Patrick

Well, to tell a WWII story where the Germans were the good guys for a change, in 1942 a chemical plant for fertilizer exploded, about 200 tons of ammonium nitrate. Since this plant was in the middle of a housing district, hundreds died.
It's the Germans who sent in troops to help rescue dozens of trapped civilians, set up ER posts, etc etc, and paid millions to move the whole plant a few kilometers outside of town to prevent another disaster later on.

Dave said:

Storage before the explosion:

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"I can't read this safety label, it's too dark. Anybody got a lighter?"

before and after

That missing chunk or pier really sells it. I don't know why that specific bit is so much more visually striking than all of the missing concrete from those warehouses, but the missing chunk of pier really speaks to the amount of devastation that blast accomplished.

That little orangish boat in the crook of the V is ON the dock in the 2nd picture.

Tiger Tsang said:

before and after

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Well it’s pretty obvious which building it was where they were storing it all. It’s the one that used to be where the big hole is now.

—Patrick

GasBandit said:

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Those big structures right next to the crater are what's left of Lebanon's main grain silo. (Reuters) The good news is that they've got enough grain to avoid a crisis, and the silos were only at about 15% of capacity. The bad news is that they were at such a low capacity because the country was in a financial crisis before the explosion happened.

GasBandit said:

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The four-up thumbnails in the first slide look almost like Monument Valley, not Beirut.

--Patrick

12min and worth all of it.

--Patrick

Jesus christ some of the final videos were right next to the building.

Dave said:

Jesus christ some of the final videos were right next to the building.

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I assume some percentage of these fell under the “200 dead.”

But what I find most fascinating is the whole forensic stitching together of the event from disparate sources into what amounts to a 3-D recreation of the event. And this technology is only going to get better.

—Patrick

Exactly what I was thinking. Once they showed the guy filming from the nearby building and the firemen, I knew none of them survived. I was watching those peoples final moments, and it hit me like a truck.