Al Jazeera is reporting that according to the president in Lebanon, it was almost three thousand tons of ammonium nitrate that blew up https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/huge-explosion-rocks-... .
People are used to huge fireballs in movies because they just aerosolize gasoline or others for that effect. Also it's a lot safer than high explosives. High explosives are dangerous.
An goes at around 10,000 feet/second or 6,800mph or 10,900 kmh.
In those videos when the white large cloud comes out (likely some form of the air being hyper compressed by the shockwave and forced faster than the speed of sound) I was like drop Camera get behind wall nooooooowwww. Or we'll keep camera it may be useful in about 45 minutes.
The white cloud is due to the shockwave causing moisture in the atmosphere to condense. Or rather immediately after the shockwave in the low pressure region.
You can see the same effect sometimes due to supersonic aircraft.
Remember, you knew it was an explosion before watching the video.
I remember I got the same reaction, but I've watched the video multiple times, I think the first time I would have been as slow as the guy filming.
My point was that I was actually in my head imagining dropping the phone and running away while I watched.
I also didn't know it was going to be that big of an explosion.
I've got plenty of memories of just not moving fast enough in an bad situation.
Tianjin was definitely bigger, Beirut has people surviving that were a couple hundred m away. That didn't happen in the former: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkDtMl5Ec7k
Two ships loading ammonium nitrate, the Grandcamp and the High Flyer, detonated in Texas City back in 1947.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster
It says there was a 15 ft wave out into the Gulf of Mexico that lasted for almost 100 miles.
And Texas City is not actually on the Gulf Coast, it is on Galveston Bay about a half hour away from the Gulf shore. And there is only a relatively narrow channel opening from the bay into the gulf.
There are ton-sized pieces of shrapnel still in a few places across the town.
I was stationed there in the early '80's when I was 20-something and everyone my age or older had parents & grandparents who had been through it, some surviving some not.
Now it's been twice as many decades and it's not as present, elements of recovery come into reach that are not possible the first few years or decades.
Think of blowing out through a straw. The airflow at the end of the straw is a lot stronger than when the straw wouldn’t be there.
[1] https://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/amd-us-archive/fm5-250%289... page 30
https://twitter.com/HeshmatAlavi/status/1290683991369097216 [camera operator probably would have died in the second blast]
Is that what set it off? Or is that what ammonium nitrate sounds like burning?
The cloud accompanying the big explosion has a very distinct red tint to it, indicating that it's a result of the ammonium nitrate going off. That before it doesn't, which suggests that the ammonium nitrate wasn't burning at the time. If you compare the Texas City disaster, it's noted that spectators were drawn towards the site by the unusual smoke clouds before the big explosion happened.
There's a lot of details that aren't clear yet, but a variety of materials being stored in a warehouse catching fire, with fireworks going off first and the ammonium nitrate going off last, is consistent with the known facts. It would, however, be exceptionally bad safety practices to store ammonium nitrate anywhere near something like fireworks. Then again, storing a large amount in a warehouse right next to downtown Beirut is itself insane, considering it has a history of being implicated in the largest explosions not involving nuclear weapons.
The deflagration of solid AN may produce NOx (an orange plume)...
Thermal decomposition produces nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and water.
[1]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001021801...
I did check and it was quickly geo-located -