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I don't understand why they'd store a cache of fireworks next to a cache of ammonium nitrate. And what kind of rent-a-welder wouldn't be aware enough of their s
by FillardMillmore 6y ago
I don't understand why they'd store a cache of fireworks next to a cache of ammonium nitrate. And what kind of rent-a-welder wouldn't be aware enough of their surroundings and the associated risks that they wouldn't properly secure the perimeter from sparks?
I'm not the conspiratorial type, but it really does seem like there's some other information that we're not getting.
- ceejayoz 6y ago"People did something dumb" hardly requires a conspiracy.
- vmception 6y agoThat's pretty much the prerequisite to all conspiracies: attributing to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
- datameta 6y agoAs the saying goes: Don't attritubute to malice that which could easily be attributed to stupidity
- danesparza 6y agoAlso known as "Hanlon's razor" :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
- Animats 6y agoHuge ammonium nitrate explosions have happened too many times before.[1] Last big one in the US was in 2015 in Texas. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ammonium_nitrate_disasters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ammonium_nitrate_disas...
- wutbrodo 6y agoBeirut's government is notoriously dysfunctional and incompetent at the basic tasks of governance. When I was there some years back, there were huge protests precipitated by this incompetence, and that was half a decade ago. People tend to underestimate how much institutional capital is involved in basic governmental tasks running smoothly, even in a country as politically polarized and dysfunctional as, say, the US. It's very plausible to me that this was just a result of that incompetence.
- spaetzleesser 6y agoI agree. Most likely it was plain incompetence or lack of care. Judging from the handling of COVID it seems the US is determined to catch up to Beirut in making everything a political issue and destroying the institutions that make everyday life work smoothly.
- Aeolun 6y agoThis requires incompetence all the way up and down the line though. From the welders to the president.
- forinti 6y agoGreat catastrophes require the collaboration of lots of people.
- roywiggins 6y agoConsidering the state of Lebanon before this, total incompetence would not come as any sort of surprise.
- InitialLastName 6y agoThe most important thing I learned from studying engineering ethics/failure analysis is that most major failures are caused by an accumulation of tiny failures (of both process and material) that, while not individually disastrous, collaborate to cause enormous damage. The "academic" engineering failures (Challenger explosion, Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Therac-25) all had that in common, as did the 747-MAX issue and this.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoWhy did a ship headed for Mozambique detour to Lebanon in the first place?
- atoav 6y agoWhy didn't it? Did you check the other 364 days of the year for ships doing detours? If not, why do you assume it isn't a perfectly normal thing?
- glenstein 6y agoThis is very important to remember. I think there's a tendency when these events happen, to pull out circumstantial details without realizing how routine they may actually be, and treat them like they 'add up' to a b-movie narrative. Hopefully one of many lessons to come from this is for people to have discipline not to transform it into a conspiracy.
- jeffbee 6y agoIt was broken. That's the real problem here is that many states are defenseless against the actions of private entities. What would your local authority do if some russians just abandoned three thousand tons of fertilizer in your harbor?
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoAnd Egypt doesn't have repair facilities?
- freeone3000 6y agoMine? They'd use a local hazardous waste disposal company and bill the ship owners the cost of the disposal.
- jeffbee 6y agoCongratulations, you have the privilege of living in a functional society. Many people do not.
- giancarlostoro 6y agoThe only odd thing I've seen is a video from late July of a car or something on fire in Beirut allegedly from an Israeli missile. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-Yakungkjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-Yakungkjc
- maximente 6y agoHanlon's razor seems rather appropriate here
- yodon 6y agoThere is no need to hunt for a conspiracy theory. Once the decision was made by their judiciary to store thousands of tons of explosives near a major population center, the important question ceases to be about what random unexpected event happens to be the one that sets it off. The probability of disaster was clearly going to integrate to one over some timescale. The failure was systemic. The tragedy was inevitable. It's actually kind of amazing it took this long to happen.
- patrickas 6y agoThere is no indication that it was "the judiciary's decision" to store it "near a major population center". That's a story floated by the head of customs to try and shift the blame to the judiciary. But there is no evidence for it, and there is much evidence against it. Source: The court documents released by journalists Riad Kobeisyi and Dima Sadek.
- azernik 6y agoAnd in fact, the judge ordered the government to either sell it off or put it in safe storage... about 6 years ago.
- pixl97 6y agoI think the storage was one of convenience. Ship was at the docks, so store it at the docks. Who would have thought it would have taken 6 years? The next problem is this 2750 tons of material. You're talking around 70 semi loads to carry it all off. This has to be funded by someone, who?
- pixl97 6y agoHonestly stop at "I don't understand" There is not one thing that went right here. Every single thing you could do wrong was done. AN should never be stored for long periods of time. AN should never be stored near organics, flammables, or any heat generating item. AN should never be stored in urban/residential areas. AN should be stored in secured environments and in the smaller amounts separated by distance or berms to protect against a incidence causing the entire cache going up. These idiots were criminally negligent on a scale rarely seen.
- nullc 6y agoIt would add a lot of force to your comment and its conclusion if you could cite a webpage making similar concrete recommendations from prior to this incident. [I'm not doubting it exists-- I mean the above sincerely. Your point would be a lot more forceful if you showed it wasn't hindsight bias.]
- Jtsummers 6y agohttps://www.atf.gov/explosives/table-distances https://www.atf.gov/explosives/table-distances That is an example of the kind of tables that exist that show what can be stored with and near what, and how much. Storing of explosives is well understood. They try these explosives in various quantities, near each other, with different heat and other effects applied. Through these experiments and through real-world accidents and catastrophes they know what shouldn't be done. What happened here was an example of what shouldn't be done.
- h2odragon 6y agohttps://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/standardinterpretations/2014-12-03 https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/standardinterpretations/2014-...
- ufmace 6y agoThis stuff is all pretty common sense. Since when do you need a "webpage making concrete recommendations" to know that storing thousands of tons of explosives in a single place in major city is a disaster waiting to happen?
- eximius 6y agoI do not mean to denigrate the skill of workers in other countries, but being less regulated / process oriented has its downsides in that you can have a higher variance in skill level. Beirut is not undeveloped, but even developed countries sometimes do things in sketchy, hazardous ways.
- MattGaiser 6y ago> I don't understand why they'd store a cache of fireworks next to a cache of ammonium nitrate. You assume a decision was actively made. I think it was more that they ended up there after being seized and then nobody made any decisions after that.
- afterburner 6y agoSeems like a decision was made, repeatedly, to do nothing about it, while knowing it was an issue. https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/hezbollah-denies-any-role-in-beirut-tragedy https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/hezbollah-denies-... > Former port worker Yusuf Shehadi confirmed this account to The Guardian on Thurday. In his recollection, "30-40 nylon bags of fireworks" had been stored in the same warehouse as the cargo of ammonium nitrate for many years. Port workers and customs officials were well aware that both of these consignments were on site and potentially dangerous, and they had raised the issue multiple times, he said. “Every week, the customs people came and complained and so did the state security officers. The army kept telling them they had no other place to put this. Everyone wanted to be the boss, and no one wanted to make a real decision," Shehadi said.
- ashtonkem 6y agoIn retrospect they should’ve sold the AN to farmers and then fought over who gets the money.
- dunmalg 6y agoSome theorize that the ammonium nitrate was already being sold off bit by bit on he black market as the harder to procure half of ANFO, and for a lot more than farmers would be willing to pay. Even carting off 500kg a week, after 4 years when 2750 tons turned into 2650, would anyone notice?
- danesparza 6y agoAnd what kind of rent-a-welder wouldn't be aware enough of their surroundings and the associated risks that they wouldn't properly secure the perimeter from sparks? One that's trying to eat. Lebanon was already having economic problems: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/world/middleeast/lebanon-economic-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/world/middleeast/lebanon-... I'm willing to bet the poor welders didn't even know about the fireworks and ammonium nitrate and probably didn't think to ask. The guys that hired them problem did, though.
- roywiggins 6y agoAccording to the link, the welders were Syrian workers. So they might well have been an even more precarious position than your average Lebanese citizen.
- atoav 6y agoI don't think one needs mich fantasy to imagine how a corrupt government in a country with corruption on every level oft the society gets something horribly wrong. Corruption means you pay someone to bend the rules, to write down things wrongly, to actually honour the rules they are bending constantly etc. So if you assume that in both cases (fireworks + ammonium nitrate) corruption was involved to bend the rules, maybe nobody really knew this was actually the case? Totally feasible. Not to speak badly about Lebanese welders, but have you ever been to a middle eastern nation and seen how they do work safety? It is a wonder that such things don't happen a little more often.
- nwallin 6y ago> Not to speak badly about Lebanese welders, The article states that the welders were Syrian. I am guessing they are refugees just trying to get by. Even assuming they were well trained and safety minded, it's reasonable to assume they did not have the power to tell their bosses, "this is unsafe so we're not gonna do it." I am not going to reject outright the possibility of some nefarious plot, but corruption and bureaucratic incompetence explain all of the facts perfectly.
- bserge 6y agoBasically, incompetence. Happens everywhere, but especially in places where people just don't care much about anything (I am from such a country). People who stored the fireworks didn't know about the ammonium nitrate, not their problem. Welders didn't know anything. They just came to do their job. Safety standards are just not a thing in many places. It's even considered a joke among many workers - you gotta work fast, not care about your ears/hands/eyes/cars/surroundings etc. It's sad. People managing the warehouse also didn't know about what's going on, and likely didn't care enough to find out.
- luxuryballs 6y agoThe kind that was sent in to ignite the fireworks and detonate the “bomb”?