Beirut hit by massive explosion wounding several and damaging buildings

BEIRUT: A massive explosion shook Lebanon's capital Beirut on Tuesday wounding a number people and causing widespread damage.
The afternoon blast shook several parts of the capital and thick smoke billowed from the city center. Residents reported windows being blown out and a false ceilings dropping.
The explosion appeared to be centered around Beirut's port and caused wide scale destruction and shattered windows miles away.

Beirut hit by massive explosion wounding several and damaging buildings

BBC report people thinking it was an earthquake,some report an accident in a warehouse but this is not confirmed,others report two blasts,again unconfirmed.
Whatever it was,it looks huge-footage shows a huge plume of smoke and the reports of windows being blown out MILES away,suggests at least one massive explosion.

One to watch,as Lebanon has a huge Hezbollah presence so this could be an Israeli action maybe.
Twitter video:

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For a guide of the size of this explosion,people are comparing it to the unbelivablely gigantic "Tianjin explosion" in China some years ago.
The difference being this is in daylight,and you can see the massive shockwave in the twitter video.
Many fatalities are sadly very likley looking at the footage.

Video here from about 1km away. Looks like a ship on fire prior to the explosion.

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Twitter thread following story.

Suspected firework storage warehouse?

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a reply to: RexKramerPRT

Some think it could have been a grain elevator explosion.

a reply to: projectvxn

Silos can be seen in first vid. Explosion looks like from adjacent warehouse.

EDIT: Silos can't be seen in that vid but can in this one

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a reply to: Silcone Synapse

More links from different angles,Holy Crap this is massive!

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Unreal...looks like it has utterly destroyed many buildings in the area.
People in the area are totally freaked out,some saying its a chemical depo that exploded.
Hoping this isn't a terror attack..

I am leaning toward a chemical explosion of some kind,as the smoke/particulates as the explosion just starts is very deep red/brown colored possibly suggesting some kind of chemical storage.

Another Twitter thread following this

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BBC just reported that some have said it maybe an israeli attack-and that the israeli military have responded by saying that they "do not comment on what foriegn news reports say."

Well,that sounds bloody ominous to me..

I know any large enough explosion looks like a nuke,and this one is no diiferent:

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a reply to: Silcone Synapse

If it was a nuke there would be nothing left there.

I don't think this was a bombing.

a reply to: Silcone Synapse

It's being reported it wan an industrial incident at a fireworks factory or store , a fire led to the explosion.


That's huge.

If you can,watch the bbc news channel coverage,they are showing the aftermath and it looks very very bad-a massive area is completley destroyed,many buildings are just mangled wreaks.
I hope there are not too many dead,but this is unlikley.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: Silcone Synapse

It's being reported it wan an industrial incident at a fireworks factory or store , a fire led to the explosion.

That's huge.

I hope its nothing nefarious,but even a firework explosion of that size could have huge implications for the country as they were basically on the edge of total economic collapse before this happened-now by the look of it,they are left without their main port.

I guess the fireworks warehouse thing is plausible. On a couple of the videos you can hear what sounds like lots of little explosions before the big KABOOM. So fireworks were involved. Seeing some speculation that the second one could have been a fertilizer or oxidizer storage facility.

The explosion was big but the vapor cloud from the shockwave was amazing.
That took some strange atmospheric conditions.

Fireworks go off or weapons going off in the first fire, nothing like firework explosions
Guessing a weapons storage destroyed by Israel

And, while it was a big explosion, maybe the water lifted around the shock wave made it look worse, or like a nuke. It was pretty bad

No one in their right mind would store fireworks next to chemical fertiliser would they

originally posted by: jefwane
I guess the fireworks warehouse thing is plausible. On a couple of the videos you can hear what sounds like lots of little explosions before the big KABOOM. So fireworks were involved. Seeing some speculation that the second one could have been a fertilizer or oxidizer storage facility.

Yeah the color of the blast in the first part of the explosion looks like iron oxide to me-an major ingredient in fireworks.

BBC are now showing footage of helicopters dumping water on an area which has many storage silos nearby,which are still smoking dangerously,although I am not sure if this is at the epicentre or further away from the main blast.
Absolute chaos.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
The explosion was big but the vapor cloud from the shockwave was amazing.
That took some strange atmospheric conditions.

Plenty of moisture in the air surrounding a port.

Could have been Hezbollah.

A UN tribunal is due to issue its verdict in the trial of four suspects in the murder by car bomb of Hariri.
All four are members of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, which has consistently denied any role in Hariri's death. They are being tried in absentia and the verdict is due on Friday.
The possible second explosion was reported to be at the Hariri residence in the city.

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a reply to: Silcone Synapse

The color was definitely not right for high explosives.
But I can't imagine why anyone would build a fireworks factory that close to population.

That must be a hell of a lot of fireworks...