Is it possible to convert ton (energy force) to ton (weight)?
I've been interested in this, concerning around an estimated 24 (according to news) tons of explosive material kaboom'd.
Those poor people...
Big enough to register as a small quake and for the shockwave to break windows a mile and a half away, for one.
Latest news in my Dutch newspaper says the explosions might have been caused by the firefighters, because they used water to try and put out a fire.
The compound stored ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate, and calcium carbide.
Calcium carbide reacts with water to form the very explosive acetylene.
A subsequent explosion of acetylene could explain the first blast, and could very well have triggered the ammonium nitrate to explode as well in the second, larger explosion.
Exploding ammonium nitrate would explain the huge devastation caused by the blast.
From the video that I've seen, it looked like the second more massive blast was right after the first, however, I don't know what the firefighters were doing at that time. I thought they arrived after the big blast.
Again, I don't know what the actual timeline of the firefighters actions are, other than that they stopped when they realized that they didn't know what chemicals were in there.
Also, what about that potassium nitrate? Potassium is in the same group as sodium, and thus reacts violently with water. Maybe I'll wiki that one though.
Edit: Potassium Nitrate is fine in water, but it IS an oxidizer and has been and is used in explosives. So, despite the fact that the wiki page says non-flammable, I probably wouldn't want it anywhere near a fire.