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The thing about the "maybe they made it less bad" argument is that the authorities repeated refusal to let the shipment be moved could have come because they wa
by joe_the_user 5y ago
The thing about the "maybe they made it less bad" argument is that the authorities repeated refusal to let the shipment be moved could have come because they wanted it there so that it could be stolen (with said authorities paid-off for that). The explosion could even have been an effort to cover the tracks of those involved.
Edit: I have no non-public information, of course. But I have read that some people were understandably worried and tried to get the shipment moved and the authorities squashed that effort.
- adrusi 5y agoI agree it's likely that it was stored there specifically to be stolen, but I seriously doubt the explosion was meant to cover up the corrupt affairs. Even if you assume the people involved didn't care about civilian lives one iota, big explosions draw attention. And realistically criminals, even terrorists, and definitely corrupt officials actually are not typically into wantonly murdering their neighbors. Maybe they underestimated the size of the blast, but more likely improperly stored explosive chemicals just exploded.
- mike_d 5y agoIt is "common knowledge" among people who construct IEDs that the fertilizer needs to be mixed with diesel or another fuel to generate a large explosion. However ammonium nitrate will act as its own oxidizer and fuel. They may have falsely believed it would be a small explosion because it was lacking what they thought was a critical component.
- contravariant 5y agoThat kind of seems like an unlikely next step for the same people who were supposedly ignoring repeated warnings that this could cause a massive explosion.