5 ms·

From a laymen's perspective, it's hard to imagine just how negligent the port authorities could have been in managing the warehouse. 2750tons high-explosive Amm

by holler 6y ago

From a laymen's perspective, it's hard to imagine just how negligent the port authorities could have been in managing the warehouse. 2750tons high-explosive Ammonium Nitrate? Check. 50tons Ammonium Phosphate? Check. Stacks of flammable wooden pallets among Ammonium Nitrate? Check. 1000 flammable rubber car tires? Check. 23tons of explosive fireworks? 5 rolls of detonator cord? Check. I mean... how/why?

tsjq 6y ago
and some alleged welding sparks in the same location
- holler 6y ago
  totally crazy! there has to be more to the story
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    What would be the additional details? Welding is a pretty common activity in any sort of industrial area, especially when repairing large constructs made of metal. Sure, I guess there could be some salient detail we're missing, but welding alone is certainly a highly plausible catalyst.
  - mumblemumble 6y ago
    There was a broken door. The port authority was worried that people might use it to gain entry to the building and tamper with or steal some of the dangerous stuff they were storing in there. So they asked a crew to fix the door.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jcranmer 6y ago
From what I understand, the warehouse was a collection of confiscated goods by customs at the port. So I can easily see that the managers at the warehouse didn't know and didn't care about proper safety storage procedures for these hazardous goods, since they hadn't been planning to acquire them in the first place. (In US legal terms, this would be recklessness). However, evidently some people (their affiliation is not clear to me) were aware of the major risks this caused and pleaded with the judiciary to do something about it, to no avail. I'm somewhat mystified as to who exactly it is that recklessly put the ammonium nitrate where it is, and I think that the desire to avoid blame here is strong enough (and the blame itself widespread enough) that a proper investigation will only end in stonewalling or scapegoating.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  >I'm somewhat mystified as to who exactly it is that recklessly put the ammonium nitrate where it is Some underpaid and undereducated laborers. Unfortunately, this society did not have sufficiently developed governance to force the proper storage of ammonium nitrate. There were multiple warnings issued over the years, and multiple mandates by the judicial system, but the political will to spend the money to move it did not exist, so it did not get moved.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    How much money would it really have cost? Worse case they conscript a dozen guys with plastic snow shovels to dump it onto the water. That would be very far from ideal, but a hell of a lot better than half the city blowing up. If they paid a dozen guys double the minimum wage for Lebanon and it took a whole month, that would be about $10,000.
    - kqr 6y ago
      They were probably not deciding between moving the AN or twiddling their thumbs. They were likely faced with a thousand other prospective things to do, many of which seemed more important than the AN. After all, the AN had been lying there without blowing up for years, so surely someone else is keeping tabs on that too. ---- What I'm saying is that it's easy in hindsight to see how stupid a decision was, but to the actors at the time they were facing a much more complicated situation with less obvious tradeoffs. Until we accept this, we will only have finger-pointing blame assigned and accidents will keep happening, because we'll just install new humans in the same flawed system that created the accident.
      - Already__Taken 6y ago
        Were you work has tons of explosives currently on fire and... you call the fire brigade and film? I seriously doubt just how many if anyone actually at the port day to day knew it was there.
    - 6y ago
darkhorn 6y ago
If I remember correctly the negligent ones were judges.
sumedh 6y ago
> it's hard to imagine just how negligent the port authorities could have been in managing the warehouse. I can totally imagine the same thing happening in an Indian port. Its mostly because of having a "dont worry, nothing will happen" attitude or even if someone from complained about the goods, getting the bureaucracy to do something is fast is almost impossible.
zxcmx 6y ago
Have you ever thought about your house? The whole damn thing is fuel. Do you store things in the attic? plastic tubs? How about the basement? cardboard? Do you have wool, paintings, plastic toys, plastic anything, wooden anything? Look around you and the places you keep things. Oh my god curtains they are more or less just flame conduits. Your couches, your clothes, everything around you is fuel for a massive fire. It can be a bit scary when you really evaluate it. I bet you have never thought seriously about the risk before. Admittedly at a city level, 3 kilotons of ammonium nitrate in a strategic location should definitely have set off some real thinking but on a personal basis most people are surrounded by fuel and don't think about it at all.
- serf 6y ago
  > Have you ever thought about your house? The whole damn thing is fuel. analogizing a house, the purpose of which is to store and house human occupants, ran by non-professionals, to a dock store-house that houses hazardous compounds and is staffed by employees is pretty useless. Yes, most everything is fuel. Storing large amounts of explosive chemicals is beyond the scope of purpose behind a household. Dock storehouses routinely deal with hazardous/dangerous goods. They are built to do so with the premise that the staff that run them will follow strict (and in most cases clearly written) guidelines. In other words : I don't need to demonstrate explosion-readiness as a strict rule before home ownership -- but most countries require groups that house and manipulate explosive or combustible goods to demonstrate both their skill in manipulation, and their disaster planning in the worst case.
  - zxcmx 6y ago
    Yes, you're right. They deeply failed as a port authority and a warehouse. I was trying to explain why civilian city leadership might not have good intuition for why the storage issue would be a problem for them.
    - sangnoir 6y ago
      I think they were restricted in what they could do. There were repeated reports of danger, and they even asked the army to store the AN. I think the failure was higher than warehouse and port authority; they correctly assessed and reported the risk, but no action was taken.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by holler 6y ago

tsjq 6y ago

and some alleged welding sparks in the same location

holler 6y ago
totally crazy! there has to be more to the story
- ineedasername 6y ago
  What would be the additional details? Welding is a pretty common activity in any sort of industrial area, especially when repairing large constructs made of metal. Sure, I guess there could be some salient detail we're missing, but welding alone is certainly a highly plausible catalyst.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  There was a broken door. The port authority was worried that people might use it to gain entry to the building and tamper with or steal some of the dangerous stuff they were storing in there. So they asked a crew to fix the door.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jcranmer 6y ago

From what I understand, the warehouse was a collection of confiscated goods by customs at the port. So I can easily see that the managers at the warehouse didn't know and didn't care about proper safety storage procedures for these hazardous goods, since they hadn't been planning to acquire them in the first place. (In US legal terms, this would be recklessness). However, evidently some people (their affiliation is not clear to me) were aware of the major risks this caused and pleaded with the judiciary to do something about it, to no avail. I'm somewhat mystified as to who exactly it is that recklessly put the ammonium nitrate where it is, and I think that the desire to avoid blame here is strong enough (and the blame itself widespread enough) that a proper investigation will only end in stonewalling or scapegoating.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
>I'm somewhat mystified as to who exactly it is that recklessly put the ammonium nitrate where it is Some underpaid and undereducated laborers. Unfortunately, this society did not have sufficiently developed governance to force the proper storage of ammonium nitrate. There were multiple warnings issued over the years, and multiple mandates by the judicial system, but the political will to spend the money to move it did not exist, so it did not get moved.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  How much money would it really have cost? Worse case they conscript a dozen guys with plastic snow shovels to dump it onto the water. That would be very far from ideal, but a hell of a lot better than half the city blowing up. If they paid a dozen guys double the minimum wage for Lebanon and it took a whole month, that would be about $10,000.
  - kqr 6y ago
    They were probably not deciding between moving the AN or twiddling their thumbs. They were likely faced with a thousand other prospective things to do, many of which seemed more important than the AN. After all, the AN had been lying there without blowing up for years, so surely someone else is keeping tabs on that too. ---- What I'm saying is that it's easy in hindsight to see how stupid a decision was, but to the actors at the time they were facing a much more complicated situation with less obvious tradeoffs. Until we accept this, we will only have finger-pointing blame assigned and accidents will keep happening, because we'll just install new humans in the same flawed system that created the accident.
    - Already__Taken 6y ago
      Were you work has tons of explosives currently on fire and... you call the fire brigade and film? I seriously doubt just how many if anyone actually at the port day to day knew it was there.
  - 6y ago

darkhorn 6y ago

If I remember correctly the negligent ones were judges.

sumedh 6y ago

> it's hard to imagine just how negligent the port authorities could have been in managing the warehouse. I can totally imagine the same thing happening in an Indian port. Its mostly because of having a "dont worry, nothing will happen" attitude or even if someone from complained about the goods, getting the bureaucracy to do something is fast is almost impossible.

zxcmx 6y ago

Have you ever thought about your house? The whole damn thing is fuel. Do you store things in the attic? plastic tubs? How about the basement? cardboard? Do you have wool, paintings, plastic toys, plastic anything, wooden anything? Look around you and the places you keep things. Oh my god curtains they are more or less just flame conduits. Your couches, your clothes, everything around you is fuel for a massive fire. It can be a bit scary when you really evaluate it. I bet you have never thought seriously about the risk before. Admittedly at a city level, 3 kilotons of ammonium nitrate in a strategic location should definitely have set off some real thinking but on a personal basis most people are surrounded by fuel and don't think about it at all.

serf 6y ago
> Have you ever thought about your house? The whole damn thing is fuel. analogizing a house, the purpose of which is to store and house human occupants, ran by non-professionals, to a dock store-house that houses hazardous compounds and is staffed by employees is pretty useless. Yes, most everything is fuel. Storing large amounts of explosive chemicals is beyond the scope of purpose behind a household. Dock storehouses routinely deal with hazardous/dangerous goods. They are built to do so with the premise that the staff that run them will follow strict (and in most cases clearly written) guidelines. In other words : I don't need to demonstrate explosion-readiness as a strict rule before home ownership -- but most countries require groups that house and manipulate explosive or combustible goods to demonstrate both their skill in manipulation, and their disaster planning in the worst case.
- zxcmx 6y ago
  Yes, you're right. They deeply failed as a port authority and a warehouse. I was trying to explain why civilian city leadership might not have good intuition for why the storage issue would be a problem for them.
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    I think they were restricted in what they could do. There were repeated reports of danger, and they even asked the army to store the AN. I think the failure was higher than warehouse and port authority; they correctly assessed and reported the risk, but no action was taken.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]