Massive mysterious explosions rocked a Chinese city

[ecureilx]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ckout.html

[Strong Eagle]

Looks like I'm going to have a hard time finding my shipping container. What a mess.

http://i.imgur.com/cggPVPR.jpg (full size)

[calugaruvaxile]

it's nowhere near a nuclear blast . if it was the smallest possible nuke, the guy filming would have been thown down by the shockwave. more like a 500 kg bomb

What's the acronym for 'You're kidding right? '.
In the scheme of things a 500Kg bomb isn't that big. The IRA used several that were larger than that in London and the damage was nothing on that scale.
In fact, going further back:
'Between 7 September 1940 and 21 May 1941 there were major aerial raids (attacks in which more than 100 tons of high explosives were dropped) on 16 British cities. Over a period of 267 days (almost 37 weeks), London was attacked 71 times'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz

So if Tianjian was 500kg, that would make the start of 'The Blitz' on London, 200* that, 71* over => surprised there's anything left standing in London at all

if there was nuke there (even the smallest one, below the critical mass) the first 3-5 apartment blocks would have been downed.

when you build a bomb, you want to make one with a "thick" shockwave. i.e. the shock "ring" is as thick as possible. this way, the damaged is maximized by positive interference (like the okh city bomb).

here, what we see is a very thin shockwave. if you want a comparison with london, this would be v2, versus a v1. v2 were psychologically intense, but the damage itself was not very impressive (a deep crater (like here) and a small areal effect.

i'm quite curious to find out what exactly exploded there (i will probably never find out, i know)

but i agree with you, i heavily underestimated the blast judging by the movie. it's 3X larger than what i thought of it

[earthfriendly]

Irregulated and irresponsible behaviors will bring down their economy, not to mention quality and safety of life. From Asiauno site.

"Volkswagen AG said on Monday that around 2,700 of its imported cars were damaged in last week's blasts at the port in China's Tianjin, which killed more than 100 people."

[Strong Eagle]

One theory - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM0jtD_OWLU

and an interesting article: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/l ... na.827622/

[x9200]

It more looks to me like an explosion related to firework base material (or some other stuff, solid and exploding slower) - from the videos, a lot of burning projectiles and the damage to the area is rather limited. Nb. these piled up shipping containers are/were probably empty.

[nakatago]

Irregulated and irresponsible behaviors

This.

Practically no regard for consequences. The scarier part is they'll probably end up taking over the world anyway.

Too bad Mars One is full of s#!+ 'cause I don't think I want to live on this planet anymore.

[Strong Eagle]

It more looks to me like an explosion related to firework base material (or some other stuff, solid and exploding slower) - from the videos, a lot of burning projectiles and the damage to the area is rather limited. Nb. these piled up shipping containers are/were probably empty.

Unlikely, especially considering that authorities are evacuating people because rain might cause more explosions.

[Sporkin]

There's reports of 700 tonnes or so of sodium cyanide stored at the explosion site, and now fears of the fallout contaminating a wide area. Heads will roll, if they haven't already.

[x9200]

It more looks to me like an explosion related to firework base material (or some other stuff, solid and exploding slower) - from the videos, a lot of burning projectiles and the damage to the area is rather limited. Nb. these piled up shipping containers are/were probably empty.

Unlikely, especially considering that authorities are evacuating people because rain might cause more explosions.

The carbide was stored in that area. It releases acetylene when treated with water but there is no way it could have cause such a big explosion - it's a slow reaction (carbide + water) and the the volume of possibly accumulated acetylene was surely limited.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-33844084
They took place at a warehouse at the port which contained hazardous and flammable chemicals, including calcium carbide, sodium cyanide, potassium nitrate, ammonium nitrate and sodium nitrate.

From that list ammonium nitrate can explode when triggered by another blast (detonation).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster

[calugaruvaxile]

The carbide was stored in that area. It releases acetylene when treated with water but there is no way it could have cause such a big explosion - it's a slow reaction (carbide + water) and the the volume of possibly accumulated acetylene was surely limited.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-33844084
They took place at a warehouse at the port which contained hazardous and flammable chemicals, including calcium carbide, sodium cyanide, potassium nitrate, ammonium nitrate and sodium nitrate.

From that list ammonium nitrate can explode when triggered by another blast (detonation).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_disaster

i think ammonium nitrate would have caused much more damage. this is a slow explosive, with a thick/long shockwave

[x9200]

There is nothing else on this bbc list that could explode (leaving aside the mentioned acetylene). Perhaps the ammonium nitrate was in limited quantity or/and purity (i.e. fertilizer) so only a small part exploded, the rest just thermally decomposed? The video footages can be misleading. They were recorded from a few km distance at night. The camera was blinded by the explosion flash and what later appeared as slowly moving burning projectiles were some burning remains actually moving much faster.

[calugaruvaxile]

There is nothing else on this bbc list that could explode (leaving aside the mentioned acetylene). Perhaps the ammonium nitrate was in limited quantity or/and purity (i.e. fertilizer) so only a small part exploded, the rest just thermally decomposed? The video footages can be misleading. They were recorded from a few km distance at night. The camera was blinded by the explosion flash and what later appeared as slowly moving burning projectiles were some burning remains actually moving much faster.

given the legendary openness of the chn govt, this is as much as we will ever know

[the lynx]

Explosion in Tianjin explained by a chemistry teacher: https://jameskennedymonash.wordpress.co ... xplosions/

[x9200]

Explosion in Tianjin explained by a chemistry teacher: https://jameskennedymonash.wordpress.co ... xplosions/

He is wrong in the calculations of the volume of acetylene. He assumed Oxygen for the reaction but not for the volume of the explosive mixture and it can explode with acetylene level in air as low as 2-3%v/v. Besides, if he compares the fire ball resulting from the explosion it has yet a different volume (and he made another mistake in the reaction ->2CO2..).

It is also more likely ammonia nitrate exploded by acetylene detonation rather than fire.
Sorry.