Explosion in Beruit

Tarw Coch · Aug 5, 2020

DrWazzock said:
You don’t need much petrol to make a hell of an explosion under the right conditions but members of the public can hose petrol into 20 litre containers on the forecourt and store it how and where they like free from inspection.
If terrorists really want AN they will turn up with guns and force whoever is in charge to open the store and give them it, even if it’s like Fort Knox with every grain recorded in triplicate.
I fail to see what further regulation of farmers use of AN will achieve. It’s storage is already subject to inspection by EA, HSE and RT and must comply with their standards. What more can we do which will actually make any difference?

As you say, I doubt there’s a lot we as farmers could do to drastically improve the safety despite the fact that current farm storage rules aren’t particularly stringent.
Even if we had it locked away on concrete bunkers I doubt they’d be strong enough to withstand the blast a full load or more could deliver and if terrorists were to take family hostage I doubt anyone is going to resist too hard although the fact that terroists aren’t currently stealing lots of on farm AN would suggest this isn’t likely to be a big issue, I’ve never heard of anyone having AN stolen anyway and I very much doubt that this recent tragic news is going to educate them about the possibilities of AN, I’m sure any terrorist worth his salt already knows

neilo · Aug 5, 2020

JCMaloney said:
There was something on fire in the unit next door, hence folk filming it. Think that was the "firework factory".... must have spread to said pile of AN in an an enclosed shed which probably just went up like a pressure cooker. Anyone nearby won`t be saying what happened, or be found.

Given there was a pretty big fire already raging next door, presumably there would have been a fair number of firefighters in close proximity, trying to deal with that.

Tarw Coch · Aug 5, 2020

neilo said:
Given there was a pretty big fire already raging next door, presumably there would have been a fair number of firefighters in close proximity, trying to deal with that.

If they knew what was in the vicinity I’d be susprised if they’d try tackling it, better to have ran as fast as they could although I doubt even Bruce Willis could have escaped a blast that size

milkloss · Aug 5, 2020

dudders said:
Someone lit a fag? Brainless morons do things like that.

My point was that it's no way as simple as that. Think gelignite, Semtex etc to set ANFO off and this 'store' of AN probably hadn't been cooked to remove the impurities in order to make an explosive ANFO mix. Apparently the AN in store was in dumpy bags.
I'm wondering how many AN 'explosions' during Transport/storage have been cover for some other untoward goings on.

Northern territory · Aug 5, 2020

Not read all this but always remember on facts training it was important to block all drains in close proximity of a store due to the dangers of gas build up in the event of a fire. Is this what could lead to the explosion?

Farmer_Joe · Aug 5, 2020

if you look at the tick tock video you can see what looks like fire works in the smoke going off,

if its true it was a shipping company went bust docked there and they just stored cargo they are likely to have no experience with it, hence storing it next to flammable stuff prob been completely unaware how volatile it could be,

thats why we have regs here to stop things like that happening,

i dont see the need to change anything here, it just a very unfortunate set of circumstances with people storing it unaware of its dangers.

ollie989898 · Aug 5, 2020

As one of those idiotic sorts I was in my youth, I have tried to burn AN before.

You won't make it burn. It will melt and basically decompose if exposed to extreme heat (I used a blow torch). You won't make it go bang unless you have a way of producing an explosion to begin with.

Storing it next to a highly unstable or chemically reactive/flammable material is a different ball game. In that circumstance all you can do is keep well away from it. Any amount of AN, even if molten, being held or contained inside a confined space and then mixed with heat and other materials exploding, look out....

Even if AN was thoroughly mixed with fuel oil in the correct proportion, you won't make it explode on it's own no matter what you do. You need another explosion to initiate it. This is why it is not really so heavily controlled in the UK.

CAN, Urea or other grades of fertiliser containing other materials are no real obstacle to a technically competent terrorist since they would be able to get an AN component from it if they knew what they were doing.

If you look at the video you see lots of tiny white flashes at the start, which looks very similar to the huge firework explosion they had in Mexico a few years back.

The Chinese fertiliser plant explosion threw burning and molten fertiliser in all directions and was an insane blast.

Exfarmer · Aug 5, 2020

Seem to remeber a broken bag of AN used to soak up some spilled diesel. Went a nice pink colour, little did we know!
another time tried to use AN to stop the parlour floor icing as we had run out of salt. The result was not nice as the ammonia reacted with the hypochlorite producing clouds of chlorine, which is of course highly poisonous meaning we had to evacuate the parlourvery quickly. Luckily no cows were being milked at the time

Still Farming · Aug 5, 2020

https://www.facebook.com/45093379305/posts/10158761566179306

ollie989898 · Aug 5, 2020

ollie989898 · Aug 5, 2020

How do you store AN safely?

Exactly the same way as they probably do at the docks, with 5000 tonnes on the floor in a gert heap slowly being bagged...

ollie989898 · Aug 5, 2020

roscoe erf · Aug 5, 2020

7610 super q said:
There's been an explosion which may or may not be deliberate in a far flung country of 2700 T of product that may or may not be AN stored in somewhat iffy conditions. Within hours there's calls to police UK farm storage, which will probably mean us being sent off on a day long pointless course, to gain yet another pointless certificate. Very strange. UK Ag seems to suffer unprecedented meddling like no other industry that I can think of. Bring on retirement.......

calm down just because some no one on here says its true really doesn't mean its so or even likely

Highland Mule · Aug 5, 2020

ollie989898 said:
How do you store AN safely?

Exactly the same way as they probably do at the docks, with 5000 tonnes on the floor in a gert heap slowly being bagged...

Or you could follow the HSE guidance I posted at the start of this thread. Not sure what your motivation is posting the various videos Ollie, but please don’t downplay the hazard of AN. It’s a strong oxidiser and has the potential to make a bad day into a really bad day, so needs to be handled with respect. Sure, you can burn it in specific conditions (just like tnt can be), but it’s a really nasty thing in other conditions.

Cheesehead · Aug 5, 2020

milkloss said:
I'm not sure on farm AN could actually explode unless you went to some lengths to make it go bang. Much of it is treated so you can't make anfo very easily and 33.5% isn't strong enough even then.

milkloss said:
My point was that it's no way as simple as that. Think gelignite, Semtex etc to set ANFO off and this 'store' of AN probably hadn't been cooked to remove the impurities in order to make an explosive ANFO mix. Apparently the AN in store was in dumpy bags.
I'm wondering how many AN 'explosions' during Transport/storage have been cover for some other untoward goings on.

I believe in the words of the Mythbusters it needs to be mixed with some blur to refine it followed by two other blurs.

Like a lot of things if stored incorrectly it can be dangerous but so can others just look at the oil/gas rigs and refineries that have gone up. It wasn't that long ago that a fertiliser plant in America went up due to Anhydrous Ammonia.

neilo · Aug 5, 2020

Exfarmer said:
Seem to remeber a broken bag of AN used to soak up some spilled diesel. Went a nice pink colour, little did we know!
another time tried to use AN to stop the parlour floor icing as we had run out of salt. The result was not nice as the ammonia reacted with the hypochlorite producing clouds of chlorine, which is of course highly poisonous meaning we had to evacuate the parlourvery quickly. Luckily no cows were being milked at the time

Who says farmers aren’t professionals....

Two Tone · Aug 5, 2020

AN plus sugar makes a pretty good explosive.

I always amazes me that the air we breathe contains 78% Nitrogen, yet most on the explosives we use contain some form of Nitrogen:
Nitroglycerin and Nitrocellulose for example.

Open cast mining used AN plus diesel as an explosive. Yet when we used to burn empty 50KG plastic fertilise bags, they always had a bit of AN left in them and there was no explosion.

What ever caused the AN to explode in Beruit, must have been been something in conjunction with the AN to make it explode.

milkloss · Aug 5, 2020

ollie989898 said:

I had to google the cause of the Tianjin explosion because I remember there was a reason: a container of nitrocellulose and water used to put the fire out was sprayed onto calcium carbide next to it..... which produces acetylene!

Breckland Boy · Aug 5, 2020

ollie989898 said:
As one of those idiotic sorts I was in my youth, I have tried to burn AN before.

You won't make it burn. It will melt and basically decompose if exposed to extreme heat (I used a blow torch). You won't make it go bang unless you have a way of producing an explosion to begin with.

Storing it next to a highly unstable or chemically reactive/flammable material is a different ball game. In that circumstance all you can do is keep well away from it. Any amount of AN, even if molten, being held or contained inside a confined space and then mixed with heat and other materials exploding, look out....

Even if AN was thoroughly mixed with fuel oil in the correct proportion, you won't make it explode on it's own no matter what you do. You need another explosion to initiate it. This is why it is not really so heavily controlled in the UK.

CAN, Urea or other grades of fertiliser containing other materials are no real obstacle to a technically competent terrorist since they would be able to get an AN component from it if they knew what they were doing.

If you look at the video you see lots of tiny white flashes at the start, which looks very similar to the huge firework explosion they had in Mexico a few years back.

The Chinese fertiliser plant explosion threw burning and molten fertiliser in all directions and was an insane blast.

On my travels in potosi, Peru sticks of dynamite and bags of ammonium nitrate were available in the local corner shops.
Having just had a few sips of 98% vodka ( surprisingly palatable) a plan was hatched to buy a stick and watch it go bang.
The local guide suggested buying the AN as well because it makes a bigger bang.
And bang it did go

ollie989898 · Aug 5, 2020

milkloss said:
I had to google the cause of the Tianjin explosion because I remember there was a reason: a container of nitrocellulose and water used to put the fire out was sprayed onto calcium carbide next to it..... which produces acetylene!

Well that explains that then! Cripes alive!!!

Explosion in Beruit

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Up to 25%

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100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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