Massive blast in Beirut

[Unseul]

Why would the government deny their existence though ?

Have they? I know the report has said that, but it also goes on to say: The Lebanese army on Sunday denied the existence of “suspicious tunnels” at the port of Beirut.

Denying suspicious tunnels, is not the same as denying underground bunkers. Quotation marks in the second bit makes it feel slightly more reliable as to what was actually said.

 

[Lysander]

Why would the government deny their existence though ?

I have no idea. Anything I could come up with would only be speculation.

Have they? I know the report has said that, but it also goes on to say: The Lebanese army on Sunday denied the existence of “suspicious tunnels” at the port of Beirut.

Denying suspicious tunnels, is not the same as denying underground bunkers. Quotation marks in the second bit makes it feel slightly more reliable as to what was actually said.

Indeed, one has to be very careful with how these reports are worded.

 

[ik9000]

I don’t think it’s fire works, I think it’s just the warehouse fire initially spreading to the ammonium nitrate before it detonates. The sparkly stuff isn’t present for long it seems.

Does AN go all sparkly like that when it's burning before exploding ?

Also why did they have a network of "panic" rooms under the docks ?

I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a weapons cache that was initially set on fire which led to the AN reaching conditions to ignite ? Obviously the massive explosion was the AN going up but there's relatively little factual information for what preceded beforehand

in fairness Hezzbollah is known to have caches all over the place, though they have obviously denied anything to do with this.

CNN hosting an interview with an expert saying the flashes would be consistent with fireworks or similar. It ends with the words fireworks or munitions dump! So yeah, they didn't rule it out. https://edition.cnn.com/videos/worl...pkg-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/beirut-explosion/

 

[Lysander]

Our city is trashed, let's make it worse

This is a very cynical way of looking at it. The people of Lebanon are livid, understandably. Unfortunately I feel a revolution is the only way out of this. Civil war has been on the cards for a long time, yes. Over there it's misery on top of misery.

An economic crisis on top of a government effectively guilty of manslaughter. 7,000 people injured, 200 dead [at the last count] when it could have been easily avoided and you wouldn't be protesting, getting violent and storming government buildings? I sure as hell would.

 

[StriderX]

Could just be an escape tunnel for an administration building. Considering the government palace where the PM resides is just a few km away, it wouldn't be a surprise if that was the purpose.

 

[Twinz]

Has anyone asked why a large amount of "fireworks" would be stored there?

Was there some sort of major celebration planned? Do they manufacture fireworks near there? Is it a hub for fireworks import export?

They say "We were storing a bunch of fireworks there." and people just go onto other questions. My first thought was "Wait...What?"

 

[Unseul]

Has anyone asked why a large amount of "fireworks" would be stored there?

Was there some sort of major celebration planned? Do they manufacture fireworks near there? Is it a hub for fireworks import export?

They say "We were storing a bunch of fireworks there." and people just go onto other questions. My first thought was "Wait...What?"

I would have thought a major harbour could easily have been storing fireworks though. I mean, is storing fireworks in a port any less likely than leaving 2,750 thousand tonnes of ammonium nitrate in a warehouse?

 

[Twinz]

I would have thought a major harbour could easily have been storing fireworks though. I mean, is storing fireworks in a port any less likely than leaving 2,750 thousand tonnes of ammonium nitrate in a warehouse?

I wouldn't be surprised if Beirut was storing large amounts of fertilizer or IED material, but fireworks just sounds sort of random.

Granted, I wouldn't expect to see much in international news about an upcoming Beirut new year or their bustling fireworks industry, the way Hezbollah/Israel skirmishes are covered. That's why I asked.

For all I know, they are a major fireworks import/export hub. That's not the kind of thing that would gain international attention.

But now that it's been claimed to be a large cache of fireworks, I'm curious.

 

[Lysander]

Has anyone asked why a large amount of "fireworks" would be stored there?

Was there some sort of major celebration planned? Do they manufacture fireworks near there? Is it a hub for fireworks import export?

They say "We were storing a bunch of fireworks there." and people just go onto other questions. My first thought was "Wait...What?"

Lebanon do import and export fireworks, $3.3m worth of them in 2018. Makes sense to store them in a port.

https://trendeconomy.com/data/h2/Lebanon/3604

 

[Greebo]

Has anyone asked why a large amount of "fireworks" would be stored there?

Was there some sort of major celebration planned? Do they manufacture fireworks near there? Is it a hub for fireworks import export?

They say "We were storing a bunch of fireworks there." and people just go onto other questions. My first thought was "Wait...What?"

Again it seems like they were confiscated back in 2010 and just had never left the warehouse.

Warehouse/dock worker quoted:

the hangar housed a quantity of fireworks, Shehadi said, which customs had confiscated in about 2009-10 and which he said he had personally seen delivered on a forklift. “There were 30 to 40 nylon bags of fireworks inside warehouse 12,” he said.

“They were on the left-hand side when you entered the door. I used to complain about this. It wasn’t safe. There was also humidity there. This was a disaster waiting to happen. The port workers did not put the chemicals there in the first place. That outrage rests with the government.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...r-port-worker-says-fireworks-stored-in-hangar

 

[explicit4u]

Entire government has resigned according to Sky News.

 

[Begbie]

Entire government has resigned according to Sky News.

How does that even work, who steps in now?!

 

[Lysander]

Entire government has resigned according to Sky News.

Looks like it either has happened or is imminent.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...non-government-verge-collapse-third-minister/

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/10/middleeast/lebanon-government-future-intl/index.html

Wonder what will happen now.

 

[Ayahuasca]

Loads of them will be on flights abroad as we speak so that they're never held accountable.

 

[dowie]

Entire government has resigned according to Sky News.

Good, lets hope they're able to form a new one with less corrupt individuals or fewer corrupt individuals or both.... and (though this is a long shot) without the involvement of that friendly little Iranian backed political group that likes to murder people....

 

[Lysander]

How does that even work, who steps in now?!

Elections, most likely. Something of this magnitude had to happen in order for them to go. Shame it had to be this way, but there is hope for a better country now.

 

[Nasher]

Does AN go all sparkly like that when it's burning before exploding ?

Also why did they have a network of "panic" rooms under the docks ?

I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a weapons cache that was initially set on fire which led to the AN reaching conditions to ignite ? Obviously the massive explosion was the AN going up but there's relatively little factual information for what preceded beforehand

Hezbollah are a major power there so it wouldn't be surprising if the stuff itself was being siphoned off for use in weapons/bombs.

 

[Rroff]

in fairness Hezzbollah is known to have caches all over the place, though they have obviously denied anything to do with this.

CNN hosting an interview with an expert saying the flashes would be consistent with fireworks or similar. It ends with the words fireworks or munitions dump! So yeah, they didn't rule it out. https://edition.cnn.com/videos/worl...pkg-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/beirut-explosion/

I can't rule out fireworks - but the consistency and manner of the crackles would maybe be mass storage of firework components rather than assembled fireworks or more likely either ammunition or packed aerosol canisters of some kind (though I'd expect to see more concussive blasts if the latter). Bags of loose (even if packaged) assembled fireworks would normally go off very differently.

Oh dear. No. There is nothing suspicious here. Just a terrible accident caused by mismanagement.

The way Israel has been interdicting weapon shipments to Iran and their proxies - especially those fighting in Syria - has forced them to seek ways to shield them such as using civilian areas so I would not rule out there being a weapons cache there.

To be frank while I'm not saying it was the case the kind of intelligence assets Israel had in play in the 24-48 hours prior over Beirut is typical of what they have in play before strikes against Iranian assets - that isn't to say the explosion was an intention even if they did take action of some kind.

 

[Minusorange]

Some closer footage to the blast

I hope this change of government doesn't mean that the truth of what happened gets lost/destroyed

 

[ik9000]

Some closer footage to the blast

I hope this change of government doesn't mean that the truth of what happened gets lost/destroyed

holy crap, did they make it through that ok? Hope they're ok.

answer is survived, but badly injured and in hospital. CNN links via the youtube page.