Beirut explosion.

[ckn]

53 minutes ago, JohnM said:

I deliberately excluded myself from the political sub forum owing to this sort of pollution. Don't poison this one, too.!

Please all take note of this. Thank you for keeping this bit of AOB away from politics.

[tim2]

33 minutes ago, Robin Evans said:

Its not the forum for it, but I'd love to explore this further..... ah well

Theres a thread for it - its had a few posts in the last 4 years.

[Industria ditat]

I suppose it begs the question - is there anywhere in the UK that ammonium nitrate is being stored in large quantities?

[Saintslass]

3 hours ago, Industria ditat said:

I suppose it begs the question - is there anywhere in the UK that ammonium nitrate is being stored in large quantities?

I imagine farmers have got a bit of it stashed here and there but not tons of the stuff like in Beirut!  

[Copa]

Turns out up to 12,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate is stored 800m from residents and 3km from the centre of Newcastle (Australia).  In Beirut they had 2750 tonnes.

Hopefully they have very safe storage processes.

[Trevorkfevfan]

Seen the news item now. Horrifying event, all from a bit of greed and careless storage. The devastation is catastrophic. The whole port has gone. And the country, Lebannon is basically skint. Will watch and see the international reaction

[bobbruce]

7 hours ago, Copa said:

Turns out up to 12,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate is stored 800m from residents and 3km from the centre of Newcastle (Australia).  In Beirut they had 2750 tonnes.

Hopefully they have very safe storage processes.

Luckily they’ve had a heads up of the danger. I’d imagine that will be getting split up. 

[SSoutherner]

22 hours ago, Industria ditat said:

I suppose it begs the question - is there anywhere in the UK that ammonium nitrate is being stored in large quantities?

In the late 80's Horsham had a UKF fertiliser depot with railway sidings for bulk delivery- the next building was a Pickfords furniture repository. One year that caught fire (no reason ever found) and the UKF Fertlilizer fork lift drivers were given bravery awards for moving all the pallets of Nitrogen and NPK fertiliser stacked 6 high against the back wall of it under cooling sprays provided by the firebrigade. Luckily the main fire station was about 200 yards away so there were there quick

https://goo.gl/maps/fv33DcUSjQyYH4FfA the building marked pickfords is a replacement building the Henfield Hire building is where  the fertiliser depot was. There would have been similar to Beirut amounts in there most autumns as we used to collect 12t just for our 90 acre farm and that depot covered all of Sussex & Surrey

[RoyBoy295]

22 hours ago, Industria ditat said:

I suppose it begs the question - is there anywhere in the UK that ammonium nitrate is being stored in large quantities?

Yes

[SSoutherner]

Well this is the amount used in the month of March in the UK - it has to be stored somewhere - that blast was 1% of the UK monthly use for March

AIC Fertiliser Statistics System

Since 1958, individual Members of the Agricultural Industries Confederation and it's predecessor the Fertiliser Manufacturers Association have participated in a statistical reporting scheme.  These figures are used in support of the British Survey of Fertiliser Practice and national reports.  Participating members can access guidance on the reporting system here.

UK Fertiliser Deliveries Statistics

These mineral fertiliser delivery data are the latest to be published from the consolidated returns which are provided on a monthly basis to those members of the AIC Fertiliser Sector who participate in the internal statistics reporting service.

Tonnes of product	March 2020
Compound fertilisers	261,087
Straight nitrogen fertilisers	283,920

[Niels]

The problem was it was stored in the capital city in an area highly populated. This is a country that does store weapons and ammunition deliberately near it's own citizens.

Therefore it is a different scenario to say here or Australia. 

 

 

[ckn]

1 hour ago, Niels said:

The problem was it was stored in the capital city in an area highly populated. This is a country that does store weapons and ammunition deliberately near it's own citizens.

Therefore it is a different scenario to say here or Australia. 

 

 

We store nuclear weapons within devastation range of major British cities, Faslane is a perfect example.

[Bedford Roughyed]

17 minutes ago, ckn said:

We store nuclear weapons within devastation range of major British cities, Faslane is a perfect example.

And small arms and ammunition in lots of towns and cities.  

[Niels]

2 hours ago, ckn said:

We store nuclear weapons within devastation range of major British cities, Faslane is a perfect example.

Faslane is 33 miles from Glasgow. The weapons are stored securely and remotley. Yearly checks are done. 

The ammunition in Beirut was stored  deliberately in a populated area. This is also a city where weapons are stored in schools and homes. 

It wasnt an accident that just randomly happened somewhere. 

Not being Political, just explaining why the population there are at a higher risk. 

 

[Niels]

1 hour ago, Bedford Roughyed said:

And small arms and ammunition in lots of towns and cities.  

There is a large difference between this and complicitly storing them next to civilians which the entity in Lebanon does unfortunately. 

Not being Political, just explaining why the population there are at a far higher risk.

 

[GeordieSaint]

4 hours ago, Niels said:

There is a large difference between this and complicitly storing them next to civilians which the entity in Lebanon does unfortunately. 

Not being Political, just explaining why the population there are at a far higher risk.

 

The entity?

[Old Frightful]

21 minutes ago, GeordieSaint said:

The entity?

I think Niels is suggesting the Lebanese population is getting shafted by an unseen force (the Political power of the Lebanese Government).

Either that or it's a boring typo.

[Bedford Roughyed]

2 hours ago, GeordieSaint said:

The entity?

Hezbollah.  

[Moralgy]

 I can’t imagine how a city with literally hundreds of thousands newly homeless people can cope. This happens at the same time as a financial crisis, increasing tensions along its border with Israel, Syria collapsing and a global pandemic. Just hundreds of thousands of homeless in a city utterly destroyed by the explosion mixed with a highly contagious global pandemic is incomprehensible.

[Bleep1673]

There was a documentary on TV about the Hiroshima bombings, the other day, I think on BBC, It was horrific, and looked very similar in the aftermath, geophysically to what happened in Beirut, although Hiroshima had problems with nuclear poisoning that went on for years, but I just sat there and watched in horror about what happened in Hiroshima, and Beirut, at the similar sized devastation.

 

[Saintslass]

1 hour ago, Bleep1673 said:

There was a documentary on TV about the Hiroshima bombings, the other day, I think on BBC, It was horrific, and looked very similar in the aftermath, geophysically to what happened in Beirut, although Hiroshima had problems with nuclear poisoning that went on for years, but I just sat there and watched in horror about what happened in Hiroshima, and Beirut, at the similar sized devastation.

 

I saw that programme.  I found it chilling, even though some of it was dramatized.  I think the programme was shown to commemorate 75 years since the bomb was dropped wasn't it?

[Robin Evans]

7 minutes ago, Saintslass said:

I saw that programme.  I found it chilling, even though some of it was dramatized.  I think the programme was shown to commemorate 75 years since the bomb was dropped wasn't it?

What was it called please?

[GeordieSaint]

1 hour ago, Bleep1673 said:

There was a documentary on TV about the Hiroshima bombings, the other day, I think on BBC, It was horrific, and looked very similar in the aftermath, geophysically to what happened in Beirut.

The strength of the Beirut explosion only had 10% of the power of the Hiroshima explosion.

[Bleep1673]

23 hours ago, Saintslass said:

I saw that programme.  I found it chilling, even though some of it was dramatized.  I think the programme was shown to commemorate 75 years since the bomb was dropped wasn't it?

Yes, 75 years since the USA committed the largest mass murder in history, in a single act.

[Bleep1673]

22 hours ago, GeordieSaint said:

The strength of the Beirut explosion only had 10% of the power of the Hiroshima explosion.

And look at the International condemnation of it.