TIANJIN explosions at dock

[TheElectricChicken]

There have been explosions on the harbour in Tianjin, China, there will be a lot of people killed, crews and so on. It's big.

Many buildings destroyed or damaged, hundreds if not thousands injured. Hospitals are swamped, hundreds of firefighters are attacking the fires. There are ships and warehouses which handle explosives and dangerous goods. The clouds are somewhat toxic.

[PA0PBZ]

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

[Lightages]

I can't imagine the fear of everyone living near that. I am sure it will take a long time for that city to recover.

[AF6LJ]

Holy Crap!
Just heard about it on the news they are saying hundreds injured or worse.

[ElectroIrradiator]

...and the twitterverse has already started to [incorrectly] compare it to the scale of the two nukes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is a slight difference between 17t and 17kt equivalent worth of TNT.

[nctnico]

Holy Crap!

We now know how the Chinese say that in different ways. Note the delay between the light and the blast wave and the effect the blast wave still has at that distance... There is no hope for anyone who was near that explosion  I'm afraid many people have been killed.

[ElectroIrradiator]

We now know how the Chinese say that in different ways. Note the delay between the light and the blast wave and the effect the blast wave still has at that distance... There is no hope for anyone who was near that explosion  I'm afraid many people have been killed.

I will recommend not following the relevant Twitter feeds right now. Just 7 killed...? Not likely...

This seems to be a fireworks explosion, though a big one, or a substance of similar potency. Ie. this wasn't a big quantity of a brisant explosive, like TNT.

[AF6LJ]

Holy Crap!

We now know how the Chinese say that in different ways. Note the delay between the light and the blast wave and the effect the blast wave still has at that distance... There is no hope for anyone who was near that explosion  I'm afraid many people have been killed.

I lived in Oregon for four years with my grandparents..
One morning while laying in bed the house shook and there was a dull thud...
I got up and my grandmother was on the phone with my aunt who lived in Wilbur which was 17 miles away.
They just had a couple of windows blown out by an explosion.
The radio had a news report of a 1 Ton box truck full of fertilizer that had started to catch fire in the town of Wilbur. The driver floored the gas and drove the truck out of town, in a vacant field he pointed the truck into an embankment at the opposite side of the field.  He jumped out, and rolled into the ditch along the side of the road.
The truck never made it to the embankment it blew and the engine was buried in the embankment. Other than the engine all that was left were one and two foot long pieces of the truck. The driver livedj, but may have been a little hard of hearing for a while..

[Tac Eht Xilef]

A bit O/T, but ...

The radio had a news report of a 1 Ton box truck full of fertilizer that had started to catch fire in the town of Wilbur. The driver floored the gas and drove the truck out of town, in a vacant field he pointed the truck into an embankment at the opposite side of the field.  He jumped out, and rolled into the ditch along the side of the road.
The truck never made it to the embankment it blew and the engine was buried in the embankment. Other than the engine all that was left were one and two foot long pieces of the truck. The driver livedj, but may have been a little hard of hearing for a while..

A few months ago: Truck hauling fertiliser explodes in outback Queensland, injuring 8.

[AF6LJ]

Those guys are lucky, that crap is notorious for spontaneous combustion. In the 1930s a truck full of fertilizer blew up in the center of Roseberg Oregon killed a bunch of people and nearly destroyed the town.
Just add Diesel fuel and you have AMFO, a staple of the mining industry here in the states and known for the damage it did in Oklahoma City back in 95...

[TheElectricChicken]

hundreds hurt, but I think they just said 50 lose their lives so far. The videos coming out make it look like end of the world. Not a good day for so many.

[TheElectricChicken]

50 dead 700 injured 20 missing

[dfmischler]

Just add Diesel fuel and you have AMFO

I think you mean ANFO (Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil).  And that is right if the fertilizer is ammonium nitrate.  When I was a kid my Dad always had big bags of ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate, sulfur, etc. for use as fertilizer and soil amendments in his greenhouse operation.  He doesn't even try to buy ammonium nitrate anymore..

[AF6LJ]

Just add Diesel fuel and you have AMFO

I think you mean ANFO (Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil).  And that is right if the fertilizer is ammonium nitrate.  When I was a kid my Dad always had big bags of ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate, sulfur, etc. for use as fertilizer and soil amendments in his greenhouse operation.  He doesn't even try to buy ammonium nitrate anymore..

Thank You..

[TheElectricChicken]

military trained for chemical disaster called in, air is still toxic everywhere, all wear masks

[German_EE]

When I first saw the newsflash last night I thought it was a meteorite hit.

[ElectroIrradiator]

Independent reports now suggest that the official number of fatalities may be way low, though it is anybody's guess by just how much. Some foreign reporters, among these at least one from Denmark, have been contacting local autorities and fire departments in Tianjin. It seems many complete fire brigades responded to the massive fire, and no-one came back. One Danish media outlet suggests as many as 1000 firefighters were at the scene when the explosions occured.

[apis]

Several explosions, the biggest 21 ton TNT equivalent according to seismographs...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-33896292

[TheElectricChicken]

One Danish media outlet suggests as many as 1000 ....

Obvious anti-Chinese bullsh&$% is Obvious. They should work on their Bullsh&#$ and make it even plausible, or give up and go back to hollywood gossip.

[TheElectricChicken]

from http://www.breakingnews.com/topic/explosion-reported-in-tianjin-china/

[fubar.gr]

Here's a similar event that took place back in the 1940s

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster

[helius]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion

Something that may turn out to be relevant to the Tianjin case:

Many of the wounds inflicted by the blast were permanently debilitating, such as those caused by flying glass or by the flash of the explosion. Thousands of people had stopped to watch the ship burning in the harbour, many from inside buildings, leaving them directly in the path of glass fragments from shattered windows. Roughly 5900 eye injuries were reported, and 41 people lost their sight permanently.

[EEVblog]

WOW! 
That is enormous.

[TheElectricChicken]

From what I remember reading about the Halifax a long time ago, this is smaller injury wise. The images show it was centered on the dock, and those dozens of containers crumpled like old socks and the new cars are good because people don't stand about where the new cars are stored, so the death toll was reduced thankfully. I think most of the pictures are people caught off guard, rather than sightseeing.

I cannot use spoiler tag, it's not installed I think http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=3981. If anyone is upset, please tell me and I remove image.

[Deathwish]

I wonder how much shrapnel was sent flying, how much oxygen got sucked out of the air and peoples lungs and how much smoke and various deadly chemicals in the smoke was about. It isnt all about the explosion is it.

[coppice]

oh wow, those look like newly imported VW ... all up in smoke ! 
the nearby buildings are all gone ... sheeesh !

Why would China be importing VWs? They were more likely for export.

[McBryce]

oh wow, those look like newly imported VW ... all up in smoke ! 
the nearby buildings are all gone ... sheeesh !

Why would China be importing VWs? They were more likely for export.

Although VW has several production plants in China, I don't think the Beetle A5 is being produced there, so they probably are imports.

McBryce.

[rsjsouza]

I remember this one, which happened not far from where I live. Not as potent, but equally impressive the power of burning fertilizer (video here)

[dexters_lab]

was huge explosion, been all over the TV the last couple of days... it reminded me of the PEPCON disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEPCON_disaster

[AF6LJ]

was huge explosion, been all over the TV the last couple of days... it reminded me of the PEPCON disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEPCON_disaster

[SeanB]

Funny enough I was reading the newspaper about this, with the row of burnt out VW vehicles, in the VW dealership. Was looking through the glass door at the showroom floor at the same models, just not crispy. Some of those RHD vehicles might have been made in SA......

[Vgkid]

Thanks for the pepcon video.

[Deathwish]

It may not have been an explosion but Bhopal still sits in my mind as the worst of the worst.

[AF6LJ]

It may not have been an explosion but Bhopal still sits in my mind as the worst of the worst.

That was really nasty.

[Frost]

It may not have been an explosion but Bhopal still sits in my mind as the worst of the worst.

Bhopal, Seveso, Enschede, Chernobyl, Palomares, Bikini Atoll, Three Mile Island and Fukushima

[VK3DRB]

It may not have been an explosion but Bhopal still sits in my mind as the worst of the worst.

Bhopal, Seveso, Enschede, Chernobyl, Palomares, Bikini Atoll, Three Mile Island and Fukushima

You forgot the Poms dropping atomic bombs on Australia, with their nuclear fallout covering most of Australia.

http://www.sea-us.org.au/thunder/britsbombingus.html

http://splash.abc.net.au/home#!/media/105376/nuclear-tests-at-maralinga

[Hypernova]

New reports of order to evacuate a further 2km radius out from the site. A traffic cop was heard of saying that "that" thing is still around.

From what I can gather the "that" in question is 700 tonnes of Sodium cyanide.

[peter.mitchell]

I'm not so sure that 21 tons of TNT number is very accurate...

[TheAmmoniacal]

My take on this after reading the news reports, and being a chemist is that tt seems like what happened here is a bit of a 'freak' accident, a large amount of calcium carbide stored next to several tons of artificial fertilizer. It began with a smaller fire that started for unknown reasons, and while firemen hosed the fire down with water the water reacted with calcium carbide which produces acetylene gas (CaC2 + H2O -> C2H2 + Ca(OH)2). Acetylene is a highly flammable gas and large amounts were being generated, this gas was then ignited by the smaller fire that had not yet been completely extinguished. The ignition of the acetylene gas is the source of that first 'detonation' and shock wave, it was sufficiently violent and hot as to detonate the fertilizer (NH4NO3 -> N2 + H2O + O2). Which is the source of the second explosion and the large fireball. 

But I'm sure official reports will come in the next few days.

[German_EE]

a large amount of calcium carbide stored next to several tons of artificial fertilizer

If you ever see practices like that then run away, very fast, as far as you can

[Lightages]

After seeing the videos, I could not believe the claim of 21 tons of TNT. But I am not chemist.

[TheAmmoniacal]

After seeing the videos, I could not believe the claim of 21 tons of TNT. But I am not chemist.

Yes, this estimate of 21 tons of TNT of complete bullshit. A realistic value is in the vicinity of 0.2-0.3 kilotons of TNT.

"Back of the envelope calculation":

[ElectroIrradiator]

I'm not so sure that 21 tons of TNT number is very accurate...

The analysis in the video makes a significant mistake in assuming all of the fireball is caused by the explosive material going off. That is almost certinaly not the case. 'Proper' (brisant) explosions doesn't create much of a fireball at all, as the MOAB test shows. The full combustion of the explosive takes place almost instantly, and what remains are hot gasses and a massive shock wave. In the Tianjin video we clearly see a lot of material in the fireball burning a long time (in relative terms) *after* the initial pair of detonations. You can clearly see burning debris falling from a great height in many of the videos of the later stages of the combustion. My first throught was actually that this was caused by a fireworks warehouse going up (Ie. big pile of loosely packed gunpowder).

What appear to have happened is a clear case of accidental Hollywood special effects: A big explosion is used to throw a huge pile of highly flammable material up in the air and ignite it. Just like when Hollywood tapes a stick of C4 to the side of a gas can, to create a nice 'explosion' (fireball) when a car 'explodes' in a car crash/is shot at/whatever. Just using the C4 alone would be very dull to look at on the silver screen.

Another clue that the 21kt probably isn't far off are the aerial photos of ground zero in Tianjin. If you compare it to the mechanical damage caused on the ground by the 'Tall Boy' 8kt (effective) bomb used by the Allied forces during WW-II, then the estimate looks reasonable. Much of the devastation we see in Tianjin is due to secondary fires igniting anything flammable near ground zero. Like the cars.

If this explosion was in the 250-500kt range, then I'd expect all those shipping containers to have been widely dispersed into the neighbouring counties as torn scrap metal plates.

[TheAmmoniacal]

The measure of a TNT equivalence only related to the amount of energy released, it is irrelevant how this energy is released and how quickly. The fire itself is not at all relevant to this calculation, the fire only helps us see the extent of volume expansion - as the gas produced carries the fire with it. And yes, explosives do not cause fireballs.

[ElectroIrradiator]

The measure of a TNT equivalence only related to the amount of energy released, it is irrelevant how this energy is released and how quickly. (...)

Male bovine manure.

[rs20]

The measure of a TNT equivalence only related to the amount of energy released...

Is that a reasonable statement to make, though? If they pull their figure from seismometer readings, then only the brisant component of the released energy would be measured. And I think it's fair enough to report that as a measure of the severity of the explosion. Either way, there's obviously a lot of shaky conversions in that video; if you're going to use TNT equivalence based on energy content, and then later use that same value to estimate brisance, then obviously you're going to be way off.

[helius]

Another clue that the 21kt probably isn't far off are the aerial photos of ground zero in Tianjin....
If this explosion was in the 250-500kt range....

Your units are off by three decimal places.

[ElectroIrradiator]

Your units are off by three decimal places.

Yes, you are right. Apparently seeing too many make the same mistake over the last few days has rubbed off on me...

kt => t.

[dexters_lab]

It may not have been an explosion but Bhopal still sits in my mind as the worst of the worst.

Bhopal, Seveso, Enschede, Chernobyl, Palomares, Bikini Atoll, Three Mile Island and Fukushima

hoping to visit Palomares soon, my parents live in the next village, the area is (poorly) fenced off but i intend to visit it with my meters

[TheElectricChicken]

There are amazing pictures coming out now on CCTV 13 (chinese TV) they are at ground level, reporters can walk through the devastation as they please, and there is so much of it, and the buildings that have undamaged concrete supports reminds me of that oklahoma city thing, how they claimed that one truck could bring down the building even though science on this planet disagrees with them. The burnt cars go on and on and the containers thrown everywhere but the concrete columns are all fine. 

The firefighters formed into two lines around a stretcher and bowed twice and then picked up the stretcher with the covered body on it and carry it like you see at funerals. There are other soldiers in green with multicoloured face masks and they go 'double-time' like a platoon running but only single file and broomsticks instead of guns.

It's pretty good what you can pick up from satellites for free anywhere on the planet.

oh, that Oklahoma thing... this is what the TV said before every channel was simultaneously silenced.


Of course, I'm not into conspiracies, every channel has completely independent news of course.

[TheAmmoniacal]

Let's just try to put this explosion into perspective for a moment, by comparing it to the West Fertilizer Company explosion in Texas. West Fertilizer had 540,000 pounds of fertilizer, that's 245,000 tons! I don't know how much of that detonated, but there's not much fertilizer left to see on the aerial photos afterwards. And this explosion in China is how much bigger?

For a comparison, the energy of fertilizer bombs is about 1250 kg for 1 ton TNT equivalent (https://www.ime.org/content/tnt_calculator). This is ANFO though, which is fertilizer + 6% fuel/oxidizer. So a conservative estimate is 2000 kg for a ton TNT equivalent for pure ammonium nitrate.

[TheAmmoniacal]

.... oklahoma city thing, how they claimed that one truck could bring down the building even though science on this planet disagrees with them.

Everything about the Oklahoma bombing is consistent with one 3000 kg ANFO bomb. Never forget that Eyewitness testimonies are the least reliable in those situations, people in shock and stress can't differentiate the sounds of bombs from falling concrete blocks or echoes (both real and in their head).

For a comparison you can look at the Norway attacks, 900 kg of ANFO (a third) and the damage it did.

[TheElectricChicken]

[Everything about the Oklahoma bombing is consistent with one 3000 kg ANFO bomb.

Actually it was entirely consistent with an alien attack and I'd put money on that.

Oh wait, just to make sure, is the game we're playing called 'pull ridiculous claims out of your ass without any evidence at all ?' I have to make sure before I bet my money is all.

[TheAmmoniacal]

[Everything about the Oklahoma bombing is consistent with one 3000 kg ANFO bomb.

Actually it was entirely consistent with an alien attack and I'd put money on that.

Oh wait, just to make sure, is the game we're playing called 'pull ridiculous claims out of your ass without any evidence at all ?' I have to make sure before I bet my money is all.

Very often the easiest explanation is the right explanation. Why invent complicated explanations for things that don't need it?

[rs20]

Oh wait, just to make sure, is the game we're playing called 'pull ridiculous claims out of your ass without any evidence at all ?' I have to make sure before I bet my money is all.

Er, I think the burden of proof is on you here, since you're the one proposing the conspiracy theory.

[TheElectricChicken]

Er, I think the burden of proof is on you here, since you're the one proposing the conspiracy theory.

About the easter bunny ? I never. HOW DARE YOU Besmirch the easter bunny's good name !!!! Oh wait, which one of us is the easter bunny again ?

As for the bombing there are plenty of websites with lost of stuff on that. Pick one that has a real world engineer, or a real scientist or who cares.

http://physics911.net/generalpartinreport/



QUOTE: The media and the Executive branch reported that the sole source of the devastation was a single truck bomb consisting of 4,800 pounds of ammonium nitrate, transported to the location in a Ryder Truck and parked in front of the building. It is impossible that the destruction to the building could have resulted from such a bomb alone.

incidentally what are you using to back up your conspiracy that it was a single truck ?

[TheElectricChicken]

They have more pictures of the cleanup, the people in red suits look tiny. lots of soldiers cleaning up and in some apartments now with glass everywhere... no people there though, someone on a stretcher.

[Mechanical Menace]

Oh wait, just to make sure, is the game we're playing called 'pull ridiculous claims out of your ass without any evidence at all ?'

That's the only game you play on here isn't it? I'm surprised you haven't claimed the whole thing is a hoax perpetrated by the CIA and reptilian alien British Royal Family to discredit the benevolent Neanderthal gods that that birthed the Chinese people* and have guided them since the 1950s to create the best place that has ever and will ever existed...


*And yeah, I know that it's not the law in the PRC that the Chinese descended from Neanderthals so are better than every other race any more. It's been all of a couple of years since...

[TheElectricChicken]

I just heard from TV out of Myanmar that the toll is 85 people dead.

[TheElectricChicken]

New explosions

[Hypernova]

I just heard from TV out of Myanmar that the toll is 85 people dead.

Just saw on the news channel that new official death toll is 104.

A guy has been found alive near the center of the blast! Turns out the containers managed to shield him enough.

[TheElectricChicken]

Thank goodness for small mercies. I think that would have made HIS day. I always worry twice about carparks, they look like giant people-squashers waiting for an earthquake, and I just know the authorities would want to get on with clearing and rebuilding after about 12 hours. or 8 if there are a few of them together.

[ElectroIrradiator]

I may yet have to eat my own words regarding the explosive yield.

Most of the photos we've seen of the piles of crumbled shipping containers are not showing the devastation precisely at ground zero. They are slightly off the edge of the crater by about 50m.

I have now seen new aerial photos of the site, in particular one looking straight down from directly above the crater ... which I estimate to be roughly 75m(!) in diameter. As mentioned the explosion pretty much cleared a further 50m beyond the rim of the crater, and only then do the piles of containers start. I have now also seen photos of what appear to be large fields of 'container confetti', which has been thrown pretty far from the explosion. That would then be the shredded containers from close to ground zero that I asked for earlier in the thread.

The diameter of the crater expected by detonating a stationary sphere of solid TNT of mass W kg at ground level above soft, sandy soil is roughly:

D(m) = 0.8 * W^1/3

So if the 21000kg yield of TNT equivalent is accurate, we'd expect the crater to be about 22m in diameter. Conversely, creating a crater of 75m in diameter would require 420t (420'000kg) of TNT equivalent.

However these numbers may not be that accurate. The craters left by the British WW-II Tall Boy bombs, 3'600kg of TNT equivalent, are notably larger than these predictions. See for instance the satellite images of the southern edge of the Håkøya Island near Tromsø, Norway, where the Tirpitz was sunk by 29 Tall Boys. Some of those bombs hit the island next to the ship. Note though, that these explosions happened underground due to the impact velocity of the bombs, which would create larger craters than predicted by the simple formula presented earlier.

Also, the explosion in Tianjin may have had the explosive material(s) spread out over a larger area, which could potentially create a much larger crater than predicted. Particularly over the wet, soft and sandy soil you'd expect in a harbour area.

[TheElectricChicken]

I may yet have to eat my own words regarding the explosive yield.

it is good to see someone who can change their mind. It comforts me to know your not psychotic 

The diameter of the crater expected by detonating a stationary sphere of solid TNT of mass W kg at ground level above soft, sandy soil is roughly:

D(m) = 0.8 * W^1/3

So if the 21000kg yield of TNT equivalent is accurate, we'd expect the crater to be about 22m in diameter. Conversely, creating a crater of 75m in diameter would require 420t (420'000kg) of TNT equivalent.

However these numbers may not be that accurate. The craters left by the British WW-II Tall Boy bombs, 3'600kg of TNT equivalent, are notably larger than these predictions. See for instance the satellite images of the southern edge of the Håkøya Island near Tromsø, Norway, where the Tirpitz was sunk by 29 Tall Boys.

Hey, you seem to have some knowledge about these things, can you tell me your opinion of the oklahoma thingo on page 4 of this thread?

[TheElectricChicken]

NHK world which is a nice to look at channel until the news comes on, which is the worst news out, has just made me change channel. The newsreader otherwise known as captain obvious said 'there were clearly problems with the way containers were stored at the site.'

Or something equally dumb, it's hard to think when there is a channel that bad sucking away your ability to think straight and reason. ergh!

[TheElectricChicken]

A total of seven or eight explosions rocked the Tianjin blast site Saturday, prompting armed police to evacuate residents within a three-kilometer radius. Wednesday’s double blast at a chemical warehouse killed 104 people and injured more than 700.

http://www.rt.com/news/312517-tianjin-explosions-fire-evacuation/

104 people dead, more than 700 injured, and thousands homeless. At least 21 firefighters are among the dead, making the disaster the deadliest for Chinese firefighters in more than 60 years.

[VK3DRB]

The sinophiles must now realise China is still a third world country.

What western country would ever have massive amounts of potassium nitrate, calcium carbide and ammonium nitrate all stored in the one area in area in a city, without any safety measures.

I have been to Tianjin... twice. I know for first hand experience how Dickensian the city is. It is like stepping back into the 1800's in the London. Polluted and filthy and ruled by corrupt politicians who own too much. Hence why a blind eye was turned to the chemicals stockpiled at the port.

[peter.mitchell]

I'm not so sure that 21 tons of TNT number is very accurate...

The analysis in the video makes a significant mistake in assuming all of the fireball is caused by the explosive material going off. That is almost certinaly not the case. 'Proper' (brisant) explosions doesn't create much of a fireball at all, as the MOAB test shows. The full combustion of the explosive takes place almost instantly, and what remains are hot gasses and a massive shock wave. In the Tianjin video we clearly see a lot of material in the fireball burning a long time (in relative terms) *after* the initial pair of detonations. You can clearly see burning debris falling from a great height in many of the videos of the later stages of the combustion. My first throught was actually that this was caused by a fireworks warehouse going up (Ie. big pile of loosely packed gunpowder).

What appear to have happened is a clear case of accidental Hollywood special effects: A big explosion is used to throw a huge pile of highly flammable material up in the air and ignite it. Just like when Hollywood tapes a stick of C4 to the side of a gas can, to create a nice 'explosion' (fireball) when a car 'explodes' in a car crash/is shot at/whatever. Just using the C4 alone would be very dull to look at on the silver screen.

Another clue that the 21kt probably isn't far off are the aerial photos of ground zero in Tianjin. If you compare it to the mechanical damage caused on the ground by the 'Tall Boy' 8kt (effective) bomb used by the Allied forces during WW-II, then the estimate looks reasonable. Much of the devastation we see in Tianjin is due to secondary fires igniting anything flammable near ground zero. Like the cars.

If this explosion was in the 250-500kt range, then I'd expect all those shipping containers to have been widely dispersed into the neighbouring counties as torn scrap metal plates.

you do realize the number often quoted is 21 TONS not 21 KILOTONS, correct?

[TheElectricChicken]

The sinophiles must now realise China is still a third world country.

What western country would ever have massive amounts of potassium nitrate, calcium carbide and ammonium nitrate all stored in the one area in area in a city, without any safety measures.

Total LOL. the United States leaves nuclear weapons on a tarmac totally unguarded. LOL.

The chinese had safety measures, which, as always and everywhere, were no match for a greedy CEO.

[ElectroIrradiator]

you do realize the number often quoted is 21 TONS not 21 KILOTONS, correct?

Yes, I realized I made this typo yesterday, when helius pointed it out to me.

Your units are off by three decimal places.

Yes, you are right. Apparently seeing too many make the same mistake over the last few days has rubbed off on me...

kt => t.

[coppice]

The sinophiles must now realise China is still a third world country.

What western country would ever have massive amounts of potassium nitrate, calcium carbide and ammonium nitrate all stored in the one area in area in a city, without any safety measures.

I have been to Tianjin... twice. I know for first hand experience how Dickensian the city is. It is like stepping back into the 1800's in the London. Polluted and filthy and ruled by corrupt politicians who own too much. Hence why a blind eye was turned to the chemicals stockpiled at the port.

Yep, this shows China is every bit as third world as the UK with its disasters at Flixborough  and Hemel Hempstead a few years ago.

[TerraHertz]

Here's a historical example of a very large fertilizer explosion. The Oppau factory, Germany, in 1921.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppau_explosion
Looks like the Tianjin one was larger.

From the book:
Centenary of BASF - In the Realm of Chemistry
(c) 1965 by Econ-Verlag GmbH, Dusseldorf - Vienna

Below is a scan from page 92-93. Oppau factory after the explosion on 21st Sept 1921, at 7.30 am.
Photo attributed to Compagnie Aerienne Francaise.

[firewalker]

When a confiscated pile of ammunition went off in Cyprus.





Alexander.

[Deathwish]

I have been to Tianjin... twice. I know for first hand experience how Dickensian the city is. It is like stepping back into the 1800's in the London. Polluted and filthy and ruled by corrupt politicians who own too much. Hence why a blind eye was turned to the chemicals stockpiled at the port.

nothing has changed except it is a more modern corruption and filth, dressed smarter and given new high tech sounding names, still run by greedy %^£££ in parliament looking for a knighthood.

[TheElectricChicken]

Excellent source of detail.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/15/asia/china-tianjin-explosions/

[TerraHertz]

When a confiscated pile of ammunition went off in Cyprus.

Ah yes! I'd forgotten about that one. Such a clever thing to do; piling a huge mound of high explosives out in the sun and weather, close by the nation's sole major power station.

I recall the government borrowing to replace that power station, was a major factor in the subsequent Cyprus banking crisis. Events during which were very enlightening regarding the 'nature of money and the banks'. Relevant to that other thread 'where does money come from.'

Edit:
Gosh that crater at Tianjin is huge. Aerial pic attached. Also an enlargement of over-pressure crushed shipping containers a long way away. Someone with experience in overpressure damage could work out the equivalent TNT weight from that?

Dammit google maps, the new format is useless. I can't figure out where this site is in the city from the maps.

[TheElectricChicken]

Seems interesting when compared to pics of the oklahoma bombing. The three buildings are surrounded by devestation and are still up. Everything light and everything delicate around them has been scrubbed and blown away. Then looking at this first pic from google of the oklahoma building, there 1) is no crater I can see let alone one big enough to blow down a building. plus, there is no damage at all surrounding the building. Either they use real cement in china for buildings or they use candy cane in the USA, where trees keep their leaves while concrete gets blown away? Looks more like a giant pacman chewed parts away from the building.

[TheElectricChicken]

I think that the oklahoma building was chewed. Definitely chewed, because all the trees are intact, heck, everything is intact except where it was chewed. I've narrowed it down to two suspects.

[Mechanical Menace]

I think that the oklahoma building was chewed. Definitely chewed, because all the trees are intact, heck, everything is intact except where it was chewed. I've narrowed it down to two suspects.

Much smaller explosion and there's a good chance the crater was filled with the debris from the explosion. Just saying...


Honestly though all politics and other machinations aside I hope the death toll stays relatively low.

[TheElectricChicken]

Much smaller explosion and there's a good chance the crater was filled with the debris from the explosion. Just saying...

That's what I mean, what is the new rule, the smaller the explosion the more likely the building is to fall down ? Doesn't make sense.

Honestly though all politics and other machinations aside I hope the death toll stays relatively low.

here here.
I hope it brings them together and makes them stronger. I think it shall.

[firewalker]

It has to do with the type of explosion. A bomb is designed for a rapid blast. The energy is released so fast it devastates everything.

Alexander.

[TheElectricChicken]

a rapid blast

That's just causing confusion because a blast IS rapid. That is the essentialist definition. Exhale fast and it's a blast. Exhale slowly and it's not. An explosion describes speed. So there is no point trying to confuse readers by saying Oklahoma was designed to be so fast it surgically cut parts of the building and stopped before it got to the trees or anything else. Unless of course you were using small blasts, strategically placed, which were not large enough to reach the trees but did the columns in.

[amyk]

I think the force of the Oklahoma bomb was largely concentrated in a small area and upwards at the building (i.e. tending to raise the floor slabs off their columns), whereas the Tianjin explosion was not very directed at all, and lots of stuff just blew outwards.

As for the buildings still standing, if you look at the close-up pictures in the CNN link above you'll see that most of the walls in them have been blown away. From where they were, the blast was mostly sideways pressure.

Either they use real cement in china for buildings or they use candy cane in the USA

I think weaker walls in the Chinese buildings might contribute to how they remained standing - all the walls were blown out easily and let the pressure wave travel through, instead of pulling the columns along with them.

[coppice]

Either they use real cement in china for buildings or they use candy cane in the USA

I think weaker walls in the Chinese buildings might contribute to how they remained standing - all the walls were blown out easily and let the pressure wave travel through, instead of pulling the columns along with them.

Most modern Chinese building have a robust concrete frame. This is infilled with aerated concrete blocks, to form the exterior walls, which are then faced to make them weatherproof. I imagine those blocks are not too hard to dislodge from the frame.

[chicken]

For those that want to check out the before:
39°02'24.3"N 117°44'09.0"E

[aargee]

So it looks like there was 700 tonnes of sodium cyanide stored on site along with large amounts of calcium carbide.

It is thought that firefighters dealing with the first explosion, inadvertently triggered the large blast with firefighting water pouring on to the chemical storage kicking off a chain reaction.

Money rules. In this case pretty much over everything else. Companies in China are really no different to many parts of the world, for some it's mostly "let's see how much we can get away with before a disaster or getting caught".

[TopLoser]

Average 49 posts a day over the 5 days since they joined. Where's that 'ignore' button.

[MadTux]

Crater seem to be about 75-100m in diameter.

Oppau explosion was 4500t of NH₄NO₃ and made a 125x90x19m crater.

Both explosions were above earth and not buried, since buried explosives make massive craters in relation to explosive weight, BLU-107 runway destruction bomb works that way and this video illustrates that effect nicely, too:


So china crater is slightly smaller and ab bit less deep than the one in Oppau => the numbers from china "officials" are nowhere near truth. More like 1000-4000t of TNT. My guess is that some real explosives like ammonium nitrate exploded and aerosolized further nonexplosive materials, maybe that sodium cyanide or calcium carbide that then mixed with moist air. Both chemicals produce combustible gases in moist air (HCN and C₂H₂) which ignited as soon as the right mixture was reached.
This fuel air explosion probably also generated the relatively low pressure, but long lasting blast wave that crushed those containers so impressively.

[TheElectricChicken]

The Supercomputer center 1.5 km from the blast has been put back online.

Some doors were blown, broken windows, collapsed ceiling, and so on, the supercomputer was working at the time and unaffected but shut down as a precaution at that time.

[miguelvp]

The average number of industrial accidents in China is higher than one every two days as I heard on NPR it was on the 300 count per year.

Doing a google search shows a lot of reports from before the last one.
https://www.google.com/#q=industrial+accidents+per+year+in+china+2015

percentage wise annual industrial deaths are probably somewhere in between 147,000, or 11.1 per 100,000 workers and  600,000, or 45.3 per 100,000 workers.

Edit:

More modern figures show half of the minimum number recently so there have been "some" improvements:

http://www.theworldofchinese.com/2014/08/chinas-shocking-record-on-industrial-accidents/

[retrolefty]

The average number of industrial accidents in China is higher than one every two days as I heard on NPR it was on the 300 count per year.

Doing a google search shows a lot of reports from before the last one.
https://www.google.com/#q=industrial+accidents+per+year+in+china+2015

percentage wise annual industrial deaths are probably somewhere in between 147,000, or 11.1 per 100,000 workers and  600,000, or 45.3 per 100,000 workers.

 UN-freaking believable. 

 It's most likely because of so much economical growth over such a short period of time.

 To give some kind of context, at the U.S. refinery I worked at for 28 years before retirement in 2007, our refinery recordable OSHA injury rate
(per 100K workers) fell from the mid 4.X at my start to well under 2 for around the last five years I was there. That's include any 'injury' that resulted in missing some work, not just death! If a band-aid fixed it, it didn't count. 

 Our annual bonus (as high as $10K some years) was heavily weight on safety and that was a key metric, along with some less major business goals. And trust me a large oil refinery complex has a high a risk potential as most any other industry (not the highest I'm sure, but among the highest).

It took a real 'change of culture' by both workers and managment to make steady downward trend in the incident rate.  One has to have a safety culture that moves away from blame to future prevention. It works but it takes many years of hard commitment to make real progress.
 

[TheElectricChicken]

Local Chinese media reports 3,000 tons of toxic chemicals were stored there.

There was more than 40 kinds of hazardous chemicals, with total volume of about 3,000 tons.

Including
800 tons of ammonium nitrate,
500 tons of potassium nitrate,
700 tons of sodium cyanide.

[Deathwish]

do they ship from aliexpress through here ?

[amyk]

do they ship from aliexpress through here ?

AliExpress sellers are located in various places, maybe some of them are there but not all. I'd guess there's more electronics manufacturers in Shenzhen than Tianjin.

[Jeroen3]

They are probably not as strict as you'd expect.
I know someone who is banned for life from working at shell affiliated places because he had cigarettes in his pocket when he went through the main gate.

[retrolefty]

They are probably not as strict as you'd expect.
I know someone who is banned for life from working at shell affiliated places because he had cigarettes in his pocket when he went through the main gate.

 Having some experience working at a refinery until 8 years ago, I have a difficult time believing that. Certainly one could only smoke in designated 'smoking posts' but no attempt at making smoking ( a cigarette anyway!) outlawed on company property. But maybe the EU is stricter on this then the U.S.?

[SeanB]

Not the cigarettes themselves he probably also had a lighter or matches in the pack as well. If he is so forgetful as to not take them out before entry he is also at a high risk from going through the motions of almost unconsciously taking one out and lighting it as well.

[TheElectricChicken]

Too true, they'd just pull out and go to smoke in front of some fumes, catch themselves and put it away and then think "PHEW now THAT was close" and then light up to calm down.

They talk about trying to make many levels and barriers to accidents in airplanes, where one failure shouldn't lead to the next, and you need multiple failures in systems to end up with bad things happening. Like tumblers lining up in locks or holes in separate pages all lining up.

Makes you wonder how the &^%$ the USA manages to leave nuclear weapons on an airstrip unguarded after they mistakenly loaded them onto an aircraft. Or why someone ordered batteries from Taiwan then the USA 'accidentally' sent them parts of a nuclear missile. You can try to idiot-proof, but what do you do when it's the USA you have to deal with ? They don't just make morons, they make them president !

[miguelvp]

They don't just make morons, they make them president !

Oh boy, I wonder how long until you get a ban hammer plucking your electrical feathers, just keep at it 

[Mechanical Menace]

Certainly one could only smoke in designated 'smoking posts' but no attempt at making smoking ( a cigarette anyway!) outlawed on company property. But maybe the EU is stricter on this then the U.S.?

In the UK we're definitely no stricter on that point. Yes you can't smoke inside a building but you can have (more than decent) smokers shelters on the grounds. I'm pretty certain that applies almost everywhere except schools and hospitals. Not that I'm saying I agree with the outright ban on hospital grounds...

[TheElectricChicken]

Oh boy, I wonder how long until you get a ban hammer plucking your electrical feathers, just keep at it 

Perhaps if you are mis-interpreting my comments as something bad, you could send me a private message (or public if you like) explaining what it is you don't like or why you don't like it, and I'd be happy to fix or remove the message for you and apologize if I think it appropriate. However, if you don't voice any concerns you may have and keep them entirely secret and keep them entirely to yourself, then your concerns can't be addressed. It's a big wide world and everyone has a different idea of humor, resolving problems requires dialogue. I find people who make Zero effort at dialogue or resolving problems end up with a smaller circle of friends than those who do make the effort. That translates to online communities as well. Just banning everyone results in unpopular forums. So many communities fail that way.

Incidentally, I doubt many ambassadors use ESP in international relations.

August 31, 2007, a US Air Force B-52 plane with the call sign ?Doom 99? took off from Minot Air Force Base (AFB), North Dakota, inadvertently loaded with six Advanced Cruise Missiles loaded with nuclear warheads and flew to Barksdale AFB, Louisiana. After landing, Doom 99? sat on the tarmac at Barksdale unguarded for nine hours before the nuclear weapons were discovered... While the Air Force was reeling from the investigations of the unauthorized movement of nuclear weapons, it was revealed that Taiwan had received classified forward sections of the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile rather than the helicopter batteries it had ordered from the US, bringing to light a second nuclear-related incident"

The UK mirror makes it rather clear, so do many other news outlets.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/george-w-bushs-legacy-the-global-371122

or enjoy some quotes

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushquotes/a/dumbbushquotes.htm

here is one of my favorites

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushismvideos/youtube/bushharmamerica.htm

[helius]

The submarine launched ICBMs can be targeted and fired by the subs independently. The Navy trusts them not to start WW3.

The entire strategic goal of submarine based ICBMs is to survive a first strike wiping out all national command centers. Trust has nothing to do with it.

[fcb]

Eh, in the UK our nukes were protected by a padlock. No arming codes or rubbish like that, just a padlock on the bombs.

The submarine launched ICBMs can be targeted and fired by the subs independently. The Navy trusts them not to start WW3.

Bike locks actually. And allen keys (hex wrenches) to set the detonation height and yield.

[TheElectricChicken]

Bike locks actually.

 

The submarine launched ICBMs can be targeted and fired by the subs independently. The Navy trusts them not to start WW3.

The entire strategic goal of submarine based ICBMs is to survive a first strike wiping out all national command centers. Trust has nothing to do with it.

Oh, who is worse, the politicians who are psychotic and misled, the politicians who are psychotic and mislead, or the armed forces who are selected to be unfeeling and do the killing of the innocent.

A recent survey found most residents in the USA actually are happy to sign a petition demanding a Nuclear first strike against Russia over the Ukraine, which is their own doing !

 

Nuclear weapons aren't like other weapons, because of WHO dies, and the manner in which they die. People who say it isn't so are as bad as those who think it was a good idea in the first place.

[helius]

You ask "who is worse". I would say that the voters are worst, because they simply get the governments they deserve.