Massive blast in Beirut

[dowie]

It even says Haifa in the twitter post.

What good would it do Hezbollah to blow up their own grain reserves and displace 300,000 of their own people

It wouldn’t, I’m aware it says Haifa in the twitter post thanks, I didn’t claim it would do Hezbollah any good to blow up their own country.

Haifa Port.

In Israel.

Yeah, you are aware they have been fighting Israel for some time right?

What I’m interested in is whether that store in the port was useful to them in that context...

(edit - spelling)

 

[StriderX]

So you accuse dowie of bringing Corbyn into something that has nothing to do with him, but it’s ok for you to then start bashing our government in a thread about an incident that also has nothing to do with them.

The moral of the story is - don't vote in idiots. I think it's entirely relevant when it concerns incompetent and negligent governments killing people. One should imagine that any reasonable person would see it as a reminder about what it means closer to home, rather than opting for empty platitudes.

 

[dowie]

He's talking about Haifa, in Israel. There's an ammonia factory there.

Ah that makes sense then, the ammonia factory.

The overall point/question still remains though - this is material they have past firm for using. Was it a straight up accident relating to a completely innocent store of fireworks and shipment or was it something else... munitions and that store being useful to them.

 

[Minusorange]

The size of that crater is insane, could easily be 100m across?

It's quite sad when you realise, before the massive explosion there was firefighters trying to put out the initial blaze, the only consolation is, it would likely to have been a quick death, I doubt they'll ever find any remains of anyone who was around the immediate blast

 

[Jokester]

It's quite sad when you realise, before the massive explosion there was firefighters trying to put out the initial blaze, the only consolation is, it would likely to have been a quick death, I doubt they'll ever find any remains of anyone who was around the immediate blast

Yeah, I looked it up on Google Earth, there's some number of cars parked in and around that area! Will be hundreds dead easy.

 

[robfosters]

The moral of the story is - don't vote in idiots. I think it's entirely relevant when it concerns incompetent and negligent governments killing people. One should imagine that any reasonable person would see it as a reminder about what it means closer to home, rather than opting for empty platitudes.

Did we really have a choice in the last election?

 

[Lysander]

Ah that makes sense then, the ammonia factory.

The overall point/question still remains though - this is material they have past firm for using. Was it a straight up accident relating to a completely innocent store of fireworks and shipment or was it something else... munitions and that store being useful to them.

According to Al Jazeera 2750 tonnes were confiscated [seized?] and there were 2750 tonnes still there in 2020, so none of it was used. Safety warnings fell on deaf ears. I suppose it's just a matter of speculation as to whether it was just never moved or being kept for some nefarious purpose in the future.

Having said that, the Jerusalem Post is making a direct link:

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/hezbollah-stockpiled-chemical-behind-beirut-blast-in-london-637578

 

[Twinz]

I don't think there are any "official " government agencies or experts that don't have some sort of interest in the how/why this happened. So I don't know how we get an explination we can trust from any country in a case like this.

 

[wildman]

According to Al Jazeera 2750 tonnes were confiscated [seized?] and there were 2750 tonnes still there in 2020, so none of it was used. Safety warnings fell on deaf ears. I suppose it's just a matter of speculation as to whether it was just never moved or being kept for some nefarious purpose in the future.

Having said that, the Jerusalem Post is making a direct link:

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/hezbollah-stockpiled-chemical-behind-beirut-blast-in-london-637578

Jerusalem post = the Israeil version of the Daily mail so you can take most of what they say with a large truck of salt, plus they can't even get names right

Then-home secretary Savid Javor

I spenf half my life in israel for work and even the Israeli's say the JP is full of ****

 

[dowie]

According to Al Jazeera 2750 tonnes were confiscated [seized?] and there were 2750 tonnes still there in 2020, so none of it was used. Safety warnings fell on deaf ears. I suppose it's just a matter of speculation as to whether it was just never moved or being kept for some nefarious purpose in the future.

Having said that, the Jerusalem Post is making a direct link:

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/hezbollah-stockpiled-chemical-behind-beirut-blast-in-london-637578

Yeah it's not exactly unwarranted speculation - same story below... It's been a fairly common ingredient in terrorist bombings and so definately worth considering. Why was the ship barred from leaving? Perhaps that bit was legit or just some tangential run of the mill Labanese corruption/attempt to shake down the ship owners... and following on from that, given the store was there was the fact it wasn't dealt with just general inefficiency etc.. or deliberate - I mean Hezbollah is part of the government and has plenty of influence there.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9257721/london-terrorists-bomb-factory-hezbollah/


(and no @Greebo I won't apologise for sometimes throwing in that they're Corbyn's friends even if people don't like being reminded of his connections to several terrorist groups)

 

[Illuminist]

The thick red smoke is probably an indication of what was in that explosion, need someone with chemical knowledge to fill us in

 

[Bluecube]

The thick red smoke is probably an indication of what was in that explosion, need someone with chemical knowledge to fill us in

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-53664064

Nitrogen Dioxide apparently

 

[ik9000]

Yes, I imagine that set off the silos. You'll note that the silos do not appear to have been crushed; rather the outer halves are missing, blown outwards.

Or the outer part was simply destroyed by the blast, and the loose grain inside effectively absorbed the blast preventing it from destroying the inner wall.

To me it looks like the collapsed side facing the explosion fractured by the blast burst as the pressure of the grain pushed the bottoms out the unsupported tops caved in. It fits with the visible debris and chunks of wall you can see slumped against the remaining half in the aerial drone images (see Sky news et al). I think Mr Jack makes a good point that the grain will have damped the impact to the other half. It's also possible an engineer designed the city-facing side thicker to protect against risk of grain dust explosion within the silos during their life. To have pieces of the external wall still lying in the silo suggets to me the silo did not go up themselves, or it would have blown the concrete out of and away from the silo. Silos tend to only go pop when enough dust gets aerosolised to be able to ignite. You can try this for yourself. Get some custard powder and try to light it. It won't do much. But blow that same teaspoon of powder next to a naked flame and watch what happens. (it's on youtube too - which is probably safer all round).

Thats the problem when you have an incompetent government sidetracked by other issues. Simple things to you and me can easily get messed/forgotten about.

Yes the Govt have said there will be an investigation into why so much "explosive" was stored for so long in unsafe conditions right next to a major population centre and I am sure the usually "lessons will be learnt" will be spoken.

But after so many cladding fires in the UK, are our Govt any less inept or culpable after the Glenfell Tower fire and that even 3 years on there are still 246 high rise buildings clad in the same cladding which still havent been repalced.

It gets worse. The industry is now lobbying the government to keep old buildings and revamp them in the name of saving carbon. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53642581 In part they are right, cement and steel do have a carbon footprint. But it's all peanuts compared to power generation and motor emissions. What we really need to do is what we should have done in the 90s and build nuclear stations to handle a major switch from fossil fuels to electric via nuclear and hydro supplemented by hydrogen fuelled gas turbines with hydrgoen made by splitting sea water made possible by a large baseline production from nuclear. It's not ideal but if it's kill the planet with CO2 or use nuclear I'd go with the latter and set up a viable electricty driven society. Only problem is the ship has sailed and it takes a decade at least to get one built and comissioned. Successive governments were warned and ignored it!

 

[Greebo]

What really? He’s no longer leader? Who knew. It’s just an aside/dig... you’re projecting a bit.

Not really. I mean you managed to get Corbyn into thread about an accident in Lebanon . That takes some doing.

And btw Dowie, I dont have an issue with the mentioning of Corbyn and his links to terrorists but I do have an issue with you bringing it up all the time when its irrelevant,. Was bad enough on the Tory thread.

 

[dowie]

@Greebo the fact you've thrown in some projection as a result of it seems to suggest you do... I don't hate Corbyn btw.. I just think he's completely incompetent and has so many dubious connections.

As I said though it's an aside, his friends in the terrorist group however could well be relevant here - it's certainly not unreasonable to mention them... it's your choice to go off on one about the aside... I've certainly not mentioned him in every post btw..

It's rather hypocritical of you though given what you've brought into this thread - I've mentioned an actual Lebanese terror group... and thrown in a cheeky aside... you on the other hand are dragging in UK politics while complaining about the mere mention of Corbyn... it seems you've got a very big chip on the old shoulder there.

 

[StriderX]

Stop poisoning the well dowie.

 

[dowie]

Stop poisoning the well dowie.

I'm not - my posts were about the incident - why do you want to make it about me? If you want to discuss the points I'm actually raising - re: Hezbollah then go ahead... it's rather rich to start moaning about something in one of my posts then complain if I reply - why not discuss the point itself... the thread topic?

 

[StriderX]

What does Corbyn have to do with the incident? Did he blow it up himself?

 

[Thekwango]

lololololololol.....waaa waaa waaa 'that's not what i said'......waaa waaa waaa discuss re: per say......waaa waaa waaa i don't make mistakes.....waaa waaa waaa don't you conflate me......here we go

 

[Jokester]

What does Corbyn have to do with the incident? Did he blow it up himself?

Nah, there'll be photos of him stood next to the guy that did it though.

 

[dowie]

What does Corbyn have to do with the incident? Did he blow it up himself?

Who said Corbyn had anything to do with the incident?

Do you want to discuss the actual incident?

lololololololol.....waaa waaa waaa 'that's not what i said'......waaa waaa waaa discuss re: per say......waaa waaa waaa i don't make mistakes.....waaa waaa waaa don't you conflate me......here we go

I mean if you want to deliberately thrown in bait then go ahead.. just to be clear though - I’d rather discuss the thread topic than have you guys try to make it all about me...