Beirut blast: Massive explosion shakes Lebanon's capital; at least 70 dead, thousands injured

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Sorry, I totally missed it as I ran through the thread for the first time today. Great minds sometimes think alike.
 
So, they will try to get an international probe.
They desperately need this. Frances President Macron is there walking in the crowds. It’s hoping he will put pressure on the leadership to transparently look into this as well as fix the corruption. Transparency is a key word here. The leaders are noted for deflecting blame and siphoning off large sums of money…including charities and international organizations contributions. The pressure to get the leaders to resign and hold open elections and disregarding sectarian groups needs to be kept up. The people are demanding it. IMF funds are waiting for reforms to happen. Even the UN may be needed to get involved. It’s such a mess there right now.

The good news is that all eyes are now being opened up into what has been happening in Lebanon even before the blast. World pressure is now on the leaders and they are losing their ability to shirk blame and hide. They have a constitution. They need to follow it!

I’ve been searching for a legitimate charity that won’t be intercepted by the governments greedy grabbing…they need so much help!
 
Ammonium Nitrate was sitting in a ship, making it like a floating bomb. - BBC

The president of Lebanon, Aoun:

Aoun says blast probe looking into external interference: Live​

President Michel Aoun said Beirut blast probe being conducted on three levels, including option of foreign interference.

by Zaheena Rasheed & Linah Alsaafin

39 minutes ago
  • Lebanese president says blast probe looking into external interference among possible causes, in addition to simple negligence or an accident.
  • Lebanese authorities have taken into custody 16 people as part of an investigation into the Beirut port warehouse explosion that shook the capital, state news agency NNA reported.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...eirut-blast-live-updates-200807062157963.html

I had not heard this, someone has floated out a “fake” video:



TV crew arrested.
 
@salibi Some military experts are calling BS on the ammonium nitrate mainly for two reasons.
The amount needed would be roughly the equivalent of an olympic pool filled with it.
They analyzed the pictures of the clouds seen after the explosion. Ammoniun nitrate cloud would be yellow (not seen in the images). They identified a red/orange cloud and white clouds. Red/orange cloud is typical of lithium, lithium is a big component of missiles. The expert hypothesis is that it was a deposit of weapons. Here the link to an interview in an Italian well known newspaper, to a military expert.

 
From what I’ve read, the port authorities petitioned government SIX times about disposing the ammonium nitrate…either allowing it to be sold for farming or getting rid of it. Each time it was brought before leadership, they did nothing. Now, they’ve arrested 16 port authorities to blame for the explosion. Scape goating much?
 
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If you have a second…how do I do that…embarrassed that I don’t know how to use it for a web page, only for word or phrase translations! :hugs:
 
@Pattylt right now I am a bit in a rush but I will help you As soon as I have a quiet moment. 😊
 
Some military experts…
Appeal to false authority. But I guess we all knew that conspiracy theories would abound. Short of some major, and documented, evidence, this is an open and shut case. But then if the attack on 9/11 was claimed to be fake, it is to be expected some articles will appear saying this was an attack. Let’s just not foolishly buy into conspiracies until the evidence is clear, and those with access to intelligence confirm it.
 
@Pattylt

To translate an entire website using Google Translate, follow these steps and see Figure 1 for reference:
  1. Open a web browser and go to translate.google.com. You don’t need a Google account to access it, because it’s free to all.
  2. In the text box on the left, type in the entire URL (including the http://) of the website you want to view.
  3. On the right, choose the language you want to see the website in.
 
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Thank you so much. I feel like an idiot not knowing how to do this…I’m supposed to be the tech savvy one in my family! I was always trying to do it from the web page I was in…dud, going to google first! Whoda thunk! 😂
 
@pnewton Not in this case. He is a well known scientist not a random guy in internet. He Is known for his amazing technical skills, he works for Italy Ministry of Defense and has given university lectures related to explosives. Did you read the article? I don’t think so. He didn’t provide a conspiracy theory, if you read what he says is that the data Inferred from the video make unlikely the thesis of ammonium nitrate only. By the way, he doesn’t talk about an attack but he makes the hypothesis of a temporary weaponry deposit in the area of the explosion. Corriere della Sera is the main Italian newspaper, not the gazette of a little town.
 
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Not in this case. He is a well known scientist not a random guy in internet.
I never heard of him. He is called by one journalist the greatest Italian explosion expert. He is making this judgement based on the video, with no other on-site analysis, something no true expert should do. And it seems to be based on the idea that the records showing over 2000 of ammonia nitrate must be false because that would require a swimming pool?

The sad part is his lone voice will echo through the internet and expand faster that an ammonia nitrate explosion.
 
I tend to want to meet in the middle here…an explosive expert will get my attention even though he is analyzing based on photos…the colors in an explosion do give clues to its contents.

But, I also urge patience and more analysis, not jumping to conclusions. A secret weapons depot in Lebanon is not a conspiracy theory. It’s the home of Hezbollah after all. So, the possibility is there. Now, it’s a matter of further analysis and deciding the probabilities. Right now, it seems to weigh in on the side of ammonium nitrate. But, there are political concerns that coverups could be in the picture too.

This is why so many nations are calling for an independent outside investigation and I am waiting for THAT to happen. In order to state with confidence which is right, only a real impartial investigation will tell us. The demands for this should be loud!
 
@pnewton You never heard of him because most likely you don’t live in Italy.
He was recently involved as explosive expert in two big government projects:

Morandi bridge demolition in Genoa


Clearing up forest flattened by cyclone


About the ‘swimming pool’ he said only that the supposed storage building for ammonium nitrate (as identified in the news immediately after the explosion) is 100 m long making it unlikely to store such a large quantity of ammonium nitrate. He was right, in fact now people are talking about the ammonium nitrate being stored in a ship and not in a brick and mortar building.
 
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It’s the home of Hezbollah after all. So, the possibility is there. Now, it’s a matter of further analysis and deciding the probabilities. Right now, it seems to weigh in on the side of ammonium nitrate
It is also not impossible, even with everything being there for an accidental explosion, that the accident was still caused as an act of terrorism. However, this is not Beirut of the past, I do not see what the target could be (a pier or harbor). No one has claimed the did it. It had the yield of a small tactical nuke (300-500 tons of TNT equivalent).

As to the colors in the video, remember the blue/gold dress? Video on the internet is not always true color.

But thank you for the middle of the road explanation and a reminder that much remains to be determined.
 
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