# Beirut explosion **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 4, 2020, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267 "2020-08-04T18:57:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/121 "2020-08-11T09:35:37Z")
I saw security camera footage of someone who probably _didn’t_ survive–a woman standng at a glass door in a store looking outside when the door exploded and she was tossed backwards in a hail of a million shards of glass. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/122 "2020-08-11T11:05:03Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > A building resists moving until it breaks. A human being is just shoved through the air which may or may not be fatal depending on a bunch of factors, such as how far from the explosion they’re standing. And people survived very close to ground zero at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki with no injuries or long term complications. Its just your luck. I read a casualty analysis which noted that injuries and fatalities tend to paradoxically increase at some distance from the blast due to flying glass. The shockwave and sound take some time to travel the distance, but the flash is instantly seen and draws people to windows. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/123 "2020-08-11T12:59:14Z")
[quote=“mikecurtis, post:118, topic:917267, full:true”]…Apparently outside of a couple hundred meters, the blast is powerful enough to rip apart rigid structures but not strong enough to kill a person. I find that amazing. [/quote] Blast overpressure, by itself, is usually more damaging to structures than it is fatal to people. See, e.g., this CDC report looking at mine explosions, overpressure, and human susceptibility (citing Glasstone and Dolan): [https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docket/archive/pdfs/NIOSH-125/125-ExplosionsandRefugeChambers.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docket/archive/pdfs/NIOSH-125/125-ExplosionsandRefugeChambers.pdf) From it, > The human body can survive relatively high blast overpressure without experiencing barotrauma. A 5 psi blast overpressure will rupture eardrums in about 1% of subjects, and a 45 psi overpressure will cause eardrum rupture in about 99% of all subjects. The threshold for lung damage occurs at about 15 psi blast overpressure. A 35-45 psi overpressure may cause 1% fatalities, and 55 to 65 psi overpressure may cause 99% fatalities. 15 psi is dropping the vast majority of residential structures, and it will remove curtain walls on more stoutly built structures. But, as the noted sage Ron White has noted, concerning hurricanes, "[It’s not that the wind is blowin’; it’s _what_ the wind is blowin’"](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RQD7Fzid1xI) Debris entrained within the blast wave will cause much more extensive injuries, and accordingly, a 10 PSI overpressure wave from a large explosion is considered to be nearly universally lethal to people exposed to it in the open. Human beings can be surprisingly resilient to injury. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/124 "2020-08-11T13:05:05Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > I read a casualty analysis which noted that injuries and fatalities tend to paradoxically increase at some distance from the blast due to flying glass. The shockwave and sound take some time to travel the distance, but the flash is instantly seen and draws people to windows. This is empirically demonstrated by a random walk on youtube through witness’s cell phone videos of large explosions. Invariably, the person is filming the disaster with their phone, _while standing behind a window._ Sliding glass door, whatever. They see the big condensation cloud form and rise and often don’t think about taking cover, away from the imminent flying razor blades factory they’re standing right next to. The blast wave hits, and you know the rest. So I totally buy those findings. Flying glass is _dangerous_. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/125 "2020-08-11T13:31:26Z")
> [@mikecurtis](#): > > Apparently outside of a couple hundred meters, the blast is powerful enough to rip apart rigid structures but not strong enough to kill a person. > I find that amazing. My EOD buddy says that if you manage to see the explosion to drop and not stand there gawking, and try to find a spot in the blast shadow of something solid - it helps to avoid all the shrapnel. ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/126 "2020-08-11T13:33:38Z")
[4K footage of explosion](https://youtu.be/SkIYjNGiaoA). Be sure to change your youtube settings to at least 1080. [Shortcut to slow mo portion.](https://youtu.be/SkIYjNGiaoA?t=87) One of the things I find interesting about this is that the video gets wobbly right after explosion but before shockwave arrives. I presume this is because the camera was mounted and the waves traveled through the ground more quickly than the air. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/127 "2020-08-11T13:38:51Z")
> [@CNN](#): > > Lebanon’s government is expected to step down on Monday night, less than a week after a massive explosion in Beirut killed more than 160 people and sparked days of violent protests. Better to step down than be strung up, I reckon. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/128 "2020-08-11T14:11:19Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > I saw security camera footage of someone who probably _didn’t_ survive–a woman standng at a glass door in a store looking outside when the door exploded and she was tossed backwards in a hail of a million shards of glass. [This](https://mobile.twitter.com/conflictsw/status/1291494253231833088?s=12&fbclid=IwAR1UIBME2li8bj602YNNus-ZrtQAMUfV-JABF7trGVaL6XDjJ_hoQSDSt1I) is the video I mentioned. Not gory, but if you watch it, you are probably watching a snuff film. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/129 "2020-08-11T14:18:19Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > One of the things I find interesting about this is that the video gets wobbly right after explosion but before shockwave arrives. I presume this is because the camera was mounted and the waves traveled through the ground more quickly than the air. Yes. **[Discussed here](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion-bridal-video-sound-before-arrival-of-main-blast/917505/25)**. You can even hear the effects of the quake, shortly before the blast wave arrives. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/130 "2020-08-11T14:29:35Z")
What are the flashes seen in the smoke before the big explosion? ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/131 "2020-08-11T14:33:46Z")
My guess is the confiscated fireworks that caught on fire in the first place. Supposedly, they look like you’d expect pyrotechnic ‘salutes’ to look like if detonated at ground level. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/132 "2020-08-11T16:14:37Z")
> **[Dangerous Goods & Hazmat](https://www.facebook.com/au.hazmat/posts/955082058299072? __tn__ =K-R)** > > LEBANON, BEIRUT: > Hangar 12: Fireworks were Stored Next to Ammonium Nitrate in Beirut Warehouse, Former Workers Say > • Customs & port authorities blamed for explosion that killed 163 people, wounded... ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/133 "2020-08-11T19:29:11Z")
Huh… to me “snuff film” has always meant a film _deliberately_ made of a death in order give pleasure to the viewer (sub-genre of sexual pleasure). That strikes me as different than the accidental capture of a fatality on video. And we don’t _know_ that the woman caught on video there was killed. Sure, a strong possibility but we don’t know for sure. Almost certainly injured to some degree. A lot depends on what kind of glass the door was made of - [some types are designed to fracture into less-lethal chunks rather than razor-sharp shards.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_glass) Safety glass for shop doors is actually fairly common and if that’s what was used the woman might have suffered only survivable injuries. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/134 "2020-08-11T20:22:15Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > 15 psi is dropping the vast majority of residential structures, and it will remove curtain walls on more stoutly built structures. But, as the noted sage Ron White has noted, concerning hurricanes, "[It’s not that the wind is blowin’; it’s _what_ the wind is blowin’"](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RQD7Fzid1xI) Debris entrained within the blast wave will cause much more extensive injuries, and accordingly, a 10 PSI overpressure wave from a large explosion is considered to be nearly universally lethal to people exposed to it in the open. Here’s a good set of charts on the effects of overpressure (they’re for nuclear weapons, but when you’re talking about kilotons of explosive, it all blurs together) > **[Overpressure](https://www.atomicarchive.com/science/effects/overpressure.html)** > > Effects of Nuclear Weapons. Overpressure. Blast effects are usually measured by the amount of overpressure, the pressure in excess of the normal atmospheric value, in pounds per square inch (psi). I bet the scientists are going to look at damage at various distances and back into their estimate for how large the explosion actually was. Here’s a nuclear weapon blast mapper- you can put in about 2-2.5 kilotons and map it wherever you want to get an idea of the level of destruction. Just ignore the radiation part. > **[NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein](https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/)** > > NUKEMAP is a website for visualizing the effects of nuclear detonations. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2020, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/135 "2020-08-11T20:27:29Z")
> [@bump](#): > > > [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > > > 15 psi is dropping the vast majority of residential structures, and it will remove curtain walls on more stoutly built structures. But, as the noted sage Ron White has noted, concerning hurricanes, "[It’s not that the wind is blowin’; it’s _what_ the wind is blowin’"](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RQD7Fzid1xI) Debris entrained within the blast wave will cause much more extensive injuries, and accordingly, a 10 PSI overpressure wave from a large explosion is considered to be nearly universally lethal to people exposed to it in the open. > > Here’s a good set of charts on the effects of overpressure (they’re for nuclear weapons, but when you’re talking about kilotons of explosive, it all blurs together) > > [Overpressure](https://www.atomicarchive.com/science/effects/overpressure.html) > > I bet the scientists are going to look at damage at various distances and back into their estimate for how large the explosion actually was. > > Here’s a nuclear weapon blast mapper- you can put in about 2-2.5 kilotons and map it wherever you want to get an idea of the level of destruction. Just ignore the radiation part. > > [NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein](https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/) Way upthread, I linked to some tweets by the armscontrolwonk folks where they were using those damage scaling equations and geolocation to do just that. I.e., note damage to building, note distance from crater, determine likely overpressure at that building, determine explosive yield. Repeat for building 2, and so on. They came up with about a 200-400 ton TNT equivalent yield. Which made sense to me. The Boom! looked smaller than Tianjin’s, which was about 1 kt, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/136 "2020-08-14T22:13:53Z")
Apologies if this has been posted already; it’s a fantastic HD shot of the port explosion. The POV is a hi-rise building looking at the site on the side of the silo where the explosion occurred. The fire is in full view as is the massive fireball itself. You can even see people on a balcony at a nearby building. The explosion is at 2:30 and then a shorter clip plays at .25x speed. I slowed it down to .25x of that with YouTube’s built-in controls ( shift , or the lesser-than symbol \< ) and holy fuck is that some scary shit. The fireball is plenty scary, but then seeing the shockwave just blast the shit out of everything… wow. I do not want to experience anything like that. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/rlvnsecLRmM/maxresdefault.jpg "ORIGINAL Beirut Explosion in HD and Slow Motion") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlvnsecLRmM) ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/137 "2020-08-14T23:22:33Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Sure, but that didn’t have anything to do with it blowing up or catching fire because of contamination. Whatever wax or clay or whatever was there as anti-caking additives. Yes. Anti-caking additives or contaminates make a basically stable and harmless material both more sensitive and more powerful, as happened in the Texas City disaster. This goes to the question (to which I was responding) of why the port was storing huge quantities of “dangerous material”: the answer is that AN is not handled or stored as an explosive: it’s handled and stored as a fertilizer. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2020, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/138 "2020-08-15T02:58:04Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > This goes to the question (to which I was responding) of why the port was storing huge quantities of “dangerous material”: the answer is that AN is not handled or stored as an explosive: it’s handled and stored as a fertilizer. You can call it whatever you want, but if it’s stored improperly, it can become an explosive. That can be true of items such as coal or grain. On top of that, not all AN is the same grade. > [@](#): > > Ammonium nitrate is produced in different grades with the higher nitrogen content used for explosives, the lower purity for fertilizers. The stock at the port was almost 35-percent nitrogen, a customs chief told the Lebanese army in late 2015, a leaked official letter shows. > > Sella said that level of nitrogen corresponded to “explosives grade stuff." > > “It needed to be treated with significant respect,” he said. [https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/ripped-chemical-bags-added-to-risk-of-beirut-blast/](https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/ripped-chemical-bags-added-to-risk-of-beirut-blast/) ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2020, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/139 "2020-08-17T01:30:54Z")
I wouldn’t call it a snuff film because it had no sexual overtones, and they were in the process of moving away from the window when the shock wave hit. Someone will probably eventually see that who knows who those women are/were, and let whoever posted it know their fates. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2020, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267/140 "2020-08-17T01:36:11Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I wouldn’t call it a snuff film because it had no sexual overtones, and they were in the process of moving away from the window when the shock wave hit. I was using something known as “poetic license.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beirut-explosion/917267.md?page=8)