Comprehensive study on the catastrophic explosion of ammonium nitrate stored in the warehouse of Beirut port

Abstract

On August 4 in Beirut Port, Lebanon, a catastrophic explosion occurred at a warehouse, claiming 204 deaths and injured more than 7000 individuals, with a property loss of approximately US$ 15 billion. An extensive consequence analysis based on the crater size and physical effects for the estimation of the quantity of exploded ammonium nitrate was performed. By using satellite images and integration methods, the crater diameter was determined to be 112.9 m. From the scaling laws, overpressure effect on structures, and inverse analysis, the trinitrotoluene equivalent mass of exploded ammonium nitrate was approximately 950.3 tons. Based on the results of the consequence analysis performed by three methodologies, it can be concluded that the warehouse not only stored a substantially large quantity of ammonium nitrate but was also located too close to the adjacent communities and residential districts without an adequate safety distance. Judging by the simulation results of overpressures and explosive blast on structures, a fatality radius is determined to be about 487 m from the explosion center. Some more lessons related to the time to explosion, phenomena of sympathetic detonation, arrival time of blast, safety distance, fatalities/injuries versus the equivalent mass of trinitrotoluene and a maximum allowable quantity of 30 tons have been learned to be the important guides for safety measures and revisions for limiting the amount of ammonium nitrate under storage.