Devastating explosion in Beirut, Lebanon.

No one is clear yet the cause. Some are saying an explosion in a fireworks or explosives warehouse or factory near the harbour. Not sure if it ignited as a result of a target. Looks absolutely devastating.

Horrific video of massive explosion in downtown port area of Beirut, with 12km shockwave - a beautiful city with amazing people, many dead & injured 💔🇱🇧 pic.twitter.com/6VYDzj7GCo

— Aamer Anwar🎗✊🏽#BlackLivesMatter (@AamerAnwar) August 4, 2020

Apparently several hospitals partially destroyed. The photos and videos of the aftermath look terrifying.

I played the clip for my wife and she almost started crying :(

If people want to click.

An absolutely massive explosion rocked the port of Beirut an hour ago, with widespread destruction reported. Origin of explosion unclear at the moment, but suggestions that a warehouse containing explosives detonated. Here's a short compilation with a dozen angles of the blast pic.twitter.com/PhTbUKZd0j

— Hugo Kaaman (@HKaaman) August 4, 2020

footage on the ground looks apocalyptic.

On the ground footage from the aftermath of the #Beruit explosion.
pic.twitter.com/vQbZV3ERnU

— Intel Air & Sea (@air_intel) August 4, 2020

As I mistakenly posted on the politics thread, some seem to think that all the different angles of footage is what indicates it was not a bomb. That is, people saw it smoking and burning first so trained their cameras in that direction. But still, that blast was shockingly scary and big.

So weird yesterday I was reading this piece on Beirut's broken sewage system (via Fizzles on twitter)

https://thebaffler.com/latest/waste-away-mounzer

Definitely evident it was burning on a smaller scale first

and sparks, like lightning.

From the angle I saw there were definitely what looked to be smaller scale flashes of light before the big explosion, but didn't seem as, well, colorful, as I'd imagine fireworks to be. But difficult to tell anything.

looks like fireworks (or ammunition?) going of at first followed by an absolutely giant fucking explosion that you would assume was due to, I dunno, explosives?

that immense spherical shockwave is terrifying to see

yeah it's a horrific sight

'Hundreds of casualties' according to the Lebanese Red Cross. Just horrible.

I’m not watching the video but what I’ve seen is horrific. One of those moments when nothing you could say or do would be adequate, you hope people are ok but know they are not. Devastating.

'casualties' would almost certainly have to be in the thousands or tens of thousands

The distinctive red color of smoke from the secondary/larger explosion could be accounted for if potassium nitrate fertilizer was involved.

That building right next to it looks...30 stories tall?

Glad to see Dave Weigel deleted his distasteful joke tweet about it. I grabbed a screenshot of it on my phone, but don't have a place to host it for a link at the moment.

was it a GoT reference? If so, I saw it.

Ugh, maybe he had two. The one I saw was "Hearing reports that the blast was caused either by a BOFA or an experimental UPDOG... looking for more info".

jeeeez

Probably someone else. It was just another boosted tweet, I think.

Presumably a reference to the idiots confidently saying it was a MOAB.

Beirut blast felt throughout Cyprus (180-320 km away)

BREAKING — The Beirut explosion caused by highly explosive sodium nitrate confiscated from a ship more than a year ago and were placed in one of the warehouses located in the port — Sources to LBCI

— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) August 4, 2020

The conspiracies that are going to be spun about this...

For sure, if true, a warehouse in a dense urban area seems to be a really good place to store confiscated highly explosive sodium nitrate.

More than 50 dead, 2,750 wounded.

That is horrifying in and of itself. But I'll be honest, I feared a much, much higher total after watching that explosion. No doubt it may climb more yet as debris is cleared, but it seems it could have been considerably worse.

that Tianjin explosion looked similarly as bad and that killed 173. Not saying that is good like, but I initially thought the death toll might be much higher than it has been so far.

If the reports circulating are accurate, it was over three times as much Ammonium Nitrate as the Tianjin explosion and 500 tonnes more than the Texas City disaster that killed nearly 600 people in the 40s.

There is a lot of talk right now on various Twitter threads and elsewhere that is...uh...making some disturbing linkages.

Nothing new under the sun.

I can guess.

Yeah, I'm not surprised... Just a little disturbed.

I can only imagine how long it will be until asshole in chief amplifies some of the worst takes.

My bad take: it would have been safer in Hezbollah's hands.

Soros is getting completely out of control

can we not

^^^

Didn't take long:

Asked if he's confident this was an attack and not an accident, Trump says, "It would seem like it, based on the explosion." He says he met with some "great generals" and they "seem to feel" that it was an attack. He then adds it was a "bomb of some kind." ?

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 4, 2020

I'm basing that on the explosion

And some great generals

That will help

But mainly the explosion

I'm sure he wishes the people of Lebanon well.

why is he focusing on how great the generals are instead of how handsome

To be fair, the generals might be basing their assessment on the explosion as well

https://www.fleetmon.com/maritime-news/2014/4194/crew-kept-hostages-floating-bomb-mv-rhosus-beirut/

This appears to be it. A ship abandoned by its owners when it stopped off part way from Georgia to Mozambique in 2014. Described at the time as ‘a floating bomb’.

Moldova, eh?

A Lebanese friend here in LA says "2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate was stored in a warehouse for six years without safety measures." Still hearsay but maybe some truth in it.

I think that's what the government said, that it had been stored there since 2014, though I might have misheard NPR.

I freaked out when I woke up to this news as they said an Australian had died and Ive a friend who works NGO in Beirut but she's already posted on FB saying she is ok phew.

JFC. Lebanon imports $42 M in fertilizer annually (39 thousand tons of NPK fertilizers, not all ammonium nitrate). They should have just discounted it for farmers.

This photo is making the rounds this evening on Telegram. Appears to show numerous parcels of bagged Ammonium Nitrate.

Was going to write this off as horse shit, but those are the exact same warehouse windows.🤔 pic.twitter.com/RLEe3XWawA

— The Intel Crab (@IntelCrab) August 4, 2020

nobody likes DHS as an agency but I’m pretty damn certain US Coast Guard port security and the DHS CFATS office wouldn’t let any facilities here get away with that

This reminds me of the big fertilizer plant explosion that happened near here a couple years ago, except that was in a much more rural area.

I mean that’s the thing, storing tons of fertilizer has to happen somewhere, but you control where and how. Not in the middle of a densely populated area.

It’s horrible, this whole thing is horrible.

The people of Lebanon have been in the streets protesting how horrible their government is for many months now. No confirmation was required, but this confirms their grievances x1000.

This whole saga is crazy. The ship carrying the ammonium nitrate was basically abandoned in Beirut port, the crew were repatriated (partly because of how dangerous the shipment was!) and the cargo was left to rot while they worked out what to do about it. https://t.co/FtsTyAahDT pic.twitter.com/7ezJ3xv6GS

— The Ultimate Worrier (@AvOpJGA) August 4, 2020

Even more worryingly the explosion appears to have wiped out most of Lebanon's grain reserves.

jfc

THE
FUCKING
STUPIDITY

The head of the Beirut Port openly admits, "We were aware of the presence of explosive material in the port, but we did not expect them to be this explosive."

Hundreds are dead and missing, thousands injured, millions displaced.

Fuck you and your team. https://t.co/iH1ftRlPIu

— Malek | مالك 🍎 (@malekawt) August 5, 2020

corruption and laziness are the lesson and the lesson won't be learned

Just heard 300 000 have now been left homeless in a country already ravaged by hunger, a severe economic crisis and the Rona. The aftermath is going to be catastrophic as well.

A horrific stat and will include people with and getting over Covid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0tURkKTaf8

wow, my wife's friend lives in Beirut and works at a hospital there. She, her husband, and child are alive, but their house was utterly destroyed and their kid suffered major cuts from glass.

Apparently a lot of places were closed due to the covid lockdown, devastating as this is that might have saved a lot of lives.

very good background in this article

https://stableseas.org/blue-economy/explosion-beirut-seafarer-rights

I've seen this a couple of times:

Although currently unsubstantiated, it is possible that legal claims prevented the auctioning of the ammonium nitrates which left on land storage as the only avenue for the safekeeping of the material.

The ship owners had run up substantial debts and there were competing creditors laying claim to the assets, including the ammonium nitrate.

It was apparently being shipped to Mozambique for use as an industrial explosive, rather than for agriculture.

has anyone made a donation to a charity providing aid/relief in Beirut that they would recommend?

evol j, from people on the ground writing on Twitter, they say donate to the Red Cross based there, many other orgs are run through the government and hopelessly corrupt.

cool, thanks!

Those asking how they can help, please consider donating directly to organizations and groups in Lebanon, especially those with strong ties working with local communities, migrant workers and refugees. Here is a list below with donation details

— لميا (@shamshoumah) August 6, 2020

So is no one going to take Trump to task for daring to publically announce this was a planned bomb when it clearly wasnt? Why would he lie about something like that unless he wante to stir shit with Israel or someone?

Nobody is going to take Trump to task for being an idiot about events in foreign countries. Foreign policy doesn’t matter to the American electorate, on the left or the right.

The closest we get to caring about foreign policy, as voters, is what we want included in the inevitable defense appropriations bills.

Where one side pays no attention at all and the other side says “this proves why the democrats are traitors to the cause and we can’t trust anyone, that’s why I’m gonna avoid answering the census and stay punk as fuck”

Got this from a co-worker:

new compilation featuring some friends that benefits NGOs on the ground in Beirut. Featuring fantastic tracks from Monolake, The Bug, Donato Dozzy, Rabih Beaini/Morphosis, Neel, and others https://morphinerecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-sacred-rage

Great explainer and visualisation here:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/09/world/middleeast/beirut-explosion.html

(Did you have anything to do with this, Alba?)

that is a good visualization. I know sometimes the nyt can be slightly reductive on these things, caveats about data journalism and visualizations etc. but I feel like I got something out of it

also, I completely misinterpreted that comment, Tracer, when I read the last line first on accident. yikes

haha

That’s a good piece of journalism. What a sad state of affairs in Lebanon.

Explainer from Forensic Architecture...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mQ60wNgKrQ