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[hops]

Since nobody has made one yet. I'm going to bed so I can't put up links in the OP.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/12/explosion-chinese-port-city-tianjin

[acetech09]

I was around there a while ago. Those buildings near the epicenter that were destroyed? Pictures don't do it justice, those were big buildings, burned straight through.

[Trapezohedron]

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...

[Sheb]

Yes, but you have to know exactly what the explosives were. Not really feasible in this case.

[Trapezohedron]

Shiit.

Either way the way the port just turned char is... :/

[martinuzz]

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.

[smjjames]

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.

[Loud Whispers]

So, read the last paragraph. I think I know what caused the explosion- someone got around to actually ordering a kilo of the stuff, and they did deliver. Well, tried to deliver.

They tried

[Helgoland]

PTW.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yield estimates are further complicated by the explosion being partially fuel-air, a combo that produces an atypically large force-to-fireball ratio.

[RedKing]

For an idea of how devastating some plant/warehouse explosions can be, see West, Texas fertilizer plant (2014).

I was still working with BATF when this one happened. Ammonium nitrate plant, it VAPORIZED the firefighters who had responded to the call, registered as a 2.1-magnitude earthquake, blew out windows up to 7 miles away, and destroyed a nearby apartment building.


Another example -- 2009 refinery explosion in Puerto Rico. Showed up as a 2.8-magnitude quake, and knocked out all cell towers in a several-mile radius around the plant. We discovered this when the BATF response team got down there and could not communicate or connect to the network at all (they had mobile 3G hotspot devices at the time for field response operations like this). We had to overnight them some sat phones to get any kind of connection.