The Tragic Beirut Explosion Was So Violent, It Disturbed Earth's Ionosphere

[G_j]

https://www.sciencealert.com/last-year-s-blast-in-lebanon-was-so-violent-it-literally-shook-the-roof-of-the-world

MIKE MCRAE
19 MARCH 2021

Early last August, residents near the Lebanese port of Beirut watched in horror as one of the largest non-nuclear, human-caused explosions on record tore a chunk out of their city, leaving hundreds dead, thousands injured, and hundreds of thousands homeless.

Its shock was felt around the globe - sensors as far away as Tunisia and Germany picked up the deep rumble, and seismic stations around 500 kilometers (just over 300 miles) away recorded its tremor.

Now it turns out the Beirut explosion caused the highest layers of the atmosphere to shake, and the resulting data could inform future efforts to keep an eye on weapons testing conducted by rogue states.

Researchers from India's National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, and Hokkaido University in Japan measured electrical disturbances in the ionosphere, finding the blast was comparable to the impact of many volcanic eruptions.


..more..

[soothsayer]

1. Interesting

[burrowowl]

2. Yes that was some blast!

[csziggy]

4. Here is video I'd never seen of the blast

In real time, slo-mo, and super slo-mo. Watch as the shock wave hits the buildings and you can see the parts coming off the buildings.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/video/viral/unseen-footage-shows-moment-of-beirut-explosion-in-4k-slow-motion/vi-BB17P6yX

[burrowowl]

9. Thanks for link.

[OAITW r.2.0]

3. Maybe we humans should think about MAD results from all explosions.

A warehouse full of explosives' anywhere is absurd. In an inner city, it's a crime against humanity.

[speak easy]

5. The 2105 Tainjin explosion was an order of magnitude bigger.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. Yes, but you need a time machine to see it. nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. No, Beirut was a bit larger

On 12 August 2015, at 23:30, two explosions occurred in the Chinese port Tianjin at a warehouse operated by Ruihai Logistics. The more powerful explosion was estimated at 336 tons TNT equivalent.[94]
...
On 4 August 2020, a warehouse containing 2,750 tonnes (3,030 short tons) of ammonium nitrate exploded following a fire in the Port of Beirut, Lebanon. The explosion generated a pressure wave felt more than 240 kilometres (150 mi) away. Following early estimates of the yield of the explosion ranging from hundreds of tons of TNT equivalent[96][97][98][99][100] to 1.1 kilotons,[101] a study by researchers from the Blast and Impact Research Group at the University of Sheffield estimated the energy of the Beirut explosion to be equivalent to 0.5 - 1.2 kt of TNT.[102]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_artificial_non-nuclear_explosions

[csziggy]

10. No, not even close

2020 Beirut explosion

{SNIP}

The first explosion, at about 18:07 local time (15:07 UTC), likely triggered by the stored fireworks, sent up a large cloud of smoke and a crackle of bright firework flashes, and heavily damaged the structure of the warehouse itself with a force equivalent to around 1.5-2.5 tons of TNT, the size of a mid-sized truck.

{SNIP}

A study of seismic signatures of the explosion by the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources in Germany produced a yield estimate between 0.5 and 1.1 kt of TNT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosion#Explosion

2015 Tianjin explosions

On 12 August 2015, a series of explosions killed 173 people, according to official reports, and injured hundreds of others at a container storage station at the Port of Tianjin.[2] The first two explosions occurred within 30 seconds of each other at the facility, which is located in the Binhai New Area of Tianjin, China.[3] The second explosion was far larger and involved the detonation of about 800 tonnes of ammonium nitrate (approx. 256 tonnes TNT equivalent).

{SNIP}

Chinese scientists subsequently estimated that the second more powerful explosion involved the detonation of about 800 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, based on crater size and lethality radius (336 tons TNT equivalent, based on relative effectiveness factor of 0.42).[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Tianjin_explosions

[speak easy]

11. I stand corrected. ty.

[USALiberal]

7. Wouldn't the open atomic bomb tests be a lot worse than this explosion? Nt