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Massive Explosion in Lebanon


Eric
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Reminds me of a story from my checkered past.

 

 

A company I used to work for was involved in an trucking accident that killed six people ( including three firefighters ) back before the days of DOT placarding. In fact, the accident was one of the reasons for the US DOT placarding requirements.

The company made dynamite and other blasting agents. In short, a truckload of dynamite caught fire while the driver was away seeking help for blown tires. The local FD responded to reports of the fire and the load exploded while they were fighting the fire. There was no information on the truck that it was carrying dynamite.

http://www.gendisasters.com/pennsyl...9s-creek-pa-nitrate-truck-explosion-june-1964


" Only twisted wreckage remained of the three fire engines. Nothing was left of the truck carrying the explosives except some metal slivers. Damage reportedly was expected to run close to half a million dollars, including a demolished school valued at $286,000. "

 

 

In 1964 dollars; that's about 4 million $ today.

Edited by willie-pete
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About the same year of the dynamite truck blowing up, we had a fire in a storage building at our place in the middle of the night. Local volunteer FD shows up. There was a hole burned in the side of the building so that's where they attacked the flames. We had 2 McCulloch Karts in that building. They had magnesium wheels and the engines (3 of them) were mostly magnesium. The fountain of blue sparks when the water hit the burning magnesium was a sight to see. The volunteers made a hasty retreat. They had no idea what was going on. My dad was in the Army Air Force in WW2 and had been trained in magnesium fires. He grabbed a hose and continued to fight the fire while letting the volunteers know what was happening. They joined back in. Sadly the building and those 2 McCulloch Karts were a total loss. We used to ride the Karts on the hard sand at the beach. The one with twin engines would run 80 mph. The single about 45.

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1 hour ago, Walt Longmire said:

About the same year of the dynamite truck blowing up, we had a fire in a storage building at our place in the middle of the night. Local volunteer FD shows up. There was a hole burned in the side of the building so that's where they attacked the flames. We had 2 McCulloch Karts in that building. They had magnesium wheels and the engines (3 of them) were mostly magnesium. The fountain of blue sparks when the water hit the burning magnesium was a sight to see. The volunteers made a hasty retreat. They had no idea what was going on. My dad was in the Army Air Force in WW2 and had been trained in magnesium fires. He grabbed a hose and continued to fight the fire while letting the volunteers know what was happening. They joined back in. Sadly the building and those 2 McCulloch Karts were a total loss. We used to ride the Karts on the hard sand at the beach. The one with twin engines would run 80 mph. The single about 45.

Did anybody ever determine a point of origin ? A big mass of magnesium is Generally very hard to get started.

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13 hours ago, Borg warner said:

 

This comes at a time when the Lebanese government is on the verge of collapse, and this may push them over the edge. So my question is, who would benefit from the collapse of the government?

 

Riots going on right now.  People are seriously pissed over this.

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3 hours ago, Walt Longmire said:

About the same year of the dynamite truck blowing up, we had a fire in a storage building at our place in the middle of the night. Local volunteer FD shows up. There was a hole burned in the side of the building so that's where they attacked the flames. We had 2 McCulloch Karts in that building. They had magnesium wheels and the engines (3 of them) were mostly magnesium. The fountain of blue sparks when the water hit the burning magnesium was a sight to see. The volunteers made a hasty retreat. They had no idea what was going on. My dad was in the Army Air Force in WW2 and had been trained in magnesium fires. He grabbed a hose and continued to fight the fire while letting the volunteers know what was happening. They joined back in. Sadly the building and those 2 McCulloch Karts were a total loss. We used to ride the Karts on the hard sand at the beach. The one with twin engines would run 80 mph. The single about 45.

Were those twin engines 101s ? tom.

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Asking who benefits from this is the wrong question to be asking. It begs the predicate factor that the explosion was not an accident and was caused by inimical actors. As the incident plays out, some may benefit and some will fall, but that is an unintended consequence akin to an earthquake, hurricane, or other natural disaster. 

The Middle East is a rather strange place. Much of it runs on the rather fatalist view that "Allah wills it" and that the individual is merely a cog performing a pre-ordained function. Israel and some of the Gulf States are the exceptions to this tendency. 

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4 hours ago, deputy tom said:

Were those twin engines 101s ? tom.

I don't recall which engines we had on them. I was pretty young. I was 11 or 12 when the cabin burned. My dad ran McCulloch chain saws for his logging business. He knew how to tune them for the best performance. He bought the Karts from the local McCulloch dealer. Saw them when he was in getting saws or saw parts. The twin engine Kart was the champion from the race track in Hoquaim the previous year.

Edited by Walt Longmire
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2 hours ago, Batesmotel said:

They should be pissed. A lot of great people just want to live normal lives. But they keep getting screwed by radicals and corruption. 

Yeah. There is no doubt in my mind that the Hezbollah protectors of the Vichy style regime made damn sure that the NH4NO3 stayed right where it was. Hezbollah is Iran's lapdogs. 

Edited by 26isbest
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12 hours ago, Walt Longmire said:

I don't recall which engines we had on them. I was pretty young. I was 11 or 12 when the cabin burned. My dad ran McCulloch chain saws for his logging business. He knew how to tune them for the best performance. He bought the Karts from the local McCulloch dealer. Saw them when he was in getting saws or saw parts. The twin engine Kart was the champion from the race track in Hoquaim the previous year.

Neat. Thanks for the reply. tom.

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Well, this pretty much explains it.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/07/beirut-explosion-former-port-worker-says-fireworks-stored-in-hangar

 

Dozens of bags of fireworks were stored in the same hangar as thousands of tonnes of ammonium nitrate at Beirut’s port and may have been a decisive factor in igniting the explosive chemical compound that fuelled Tuesday’s huge explosion, a former port worker and other sources have told the Guardian."

 

As the person on the silo roof films the north end of the warehouse from their vantage point, the smoke thickens and then a dozen or so white flashes can be seen occurring in rapid succession inside, triggering thicker red flames that quickly spread southwards before detonating a major explosion in the building within seconds that causes the person filming to duck for cover.

Shehadi said he had spoken to former colleagues at the port who said workers were attempting to fix a gate outside warehouse 12 with an electrical tool ahead of the blast. “This was at 5pm, and after 30 minutes they saw smoke. Firefighters came, and so did state security. Everyone died.” '

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