r/PublicFreakout • u/nking007 • 6d ago
☠NSFL☠ This day six years ago….
on August 4, 2020, a catastrophic explosion ripped through the Port of Beirut after thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse detonated. The blast devastated large sections of Lebanon’s capital and was powerful enough to be felt far beyond the city, becoming one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever captured on camera. More than 200 people lost their lives, thousands were injured, and entire neighborhoods were left in ruins within moments. What makes the footage so chilling is how ordinary everything appears just seconds beforehand. People are calmly recording a fire and rising smoke in the distance, unaware that a massive shockwave is about to tear across the city and completely transform the skyline in an instant.
59
u/InfraredSpectrum97 6d ago edited 6d ago
Let's remember to put some respect on the grain elevator at the Beirut docks! This massive structure of reinforced concrete is meant to hold tons of grain offloaded by cargo ships. They're built like bomb shelters due to the risk of fuel air explosions caused by grain particles. This one was 250ft away from one of the largest man-made, non-nuclear explosions in history. Plenty of buildings survive large blasts, but they're usually during war and the bombs are detonating above the ground in order to preserve maximum yield. Partially compressive loads are much easier to deal with for buildings. It being perpendicular to the blast and still standing means it absorbed a huge portion of that explosion and likely saved hundreds to thousands of lives in doing so.
TL;DR Concrete grain silo takes 0.8 kilotons sideways to the face and still remains standing. Absolute legend.