[KEITHMAR]

Ammonia Nitrate , People!! I hope no one is storing this stuff in Their garden sheds??What a tragedy , how these poor people have suffered in the last fifty years or so, My thoughts go out to Them , Absolutely Horrifying .

 

[KEITHMAR]

Iwas trying to put the heading correctly when it flashed into thread!

 

[Philthechill]

It has----

Ammonia Nitrate , People!! I hope no one is storing this stuff in Their garden sheds??What a tragedy , how these poor people have suffered in the last fifty years or so, My thoughts go out to Them , Absolutely Horrifying .

----to have a catalyst to detonate it and I think the clue to that catastrophic explosion was the cache of 'Chinese fireworks' stored in the same warehouse.

I reckon the fire, which precluded the explosion, set-off the fireworks which probably acted as a detonator, (catalyst), for the ammonia nitrate.

'Arrests have been made'! Of whom exactly? The managerial staff, (being the most likely arrested), would need a Degree in Chemistry to know the explosive quality of ammonia nitrate and not to store it in the vicinity of the catalyst needed to detonate it.

Doubtless the explosion is the largest non-nuclear blast ever. Phi

 

[Mad Landsman]

A nuclear explosion is measured in Kilo-tons and extrapolated up to Mega-tons of TNT equivalent.
They know these figures because they actually detonated thousands of tons of TNT to see what happened. I think that those might be the biggest non-nuclear explosions.

When is comes to accidental explosions I believe that the Texas City disaster of 1947 is probably in there.
It involved 2300 tons of, yes guess what; Ammonium Nitrate which was on a ship in the port.

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


When stored as fertiliser in this country it has to have a retardant added.
When stored for prospective use to make explosive, by the addition of an accelerant, then all proper precautions for explosives must be in place.

The Captain of the MV Rhosus was already concerned at the volatility of his cargo in 2013, when he docked.
Since then it has been stored for six years in polypropylene bulk bags in a hot warehouse with no proper monitoring.
It did not need a catalyst, just a detonator, which in this case seems to have been a hot steel warehouse wall from a fire next door.

 

[jmcg]

----to have a catalyst to detonate it and I think the clue to that catastrophic explosion was the cache of 'Chinese fireworks' stored in the same warehouse.

I reckon the fire, which precluded the explosion, set-off the fireworks which probably acted as a detonator, (catalyst), for the ammonia nitrate.

'Arrests have been made'! Of whom exactly? The managerial staff, (being the most likely arrested), would need a Degree in Chemistry to know the explosive quality of ammonia nitrate and not to store it in the vicinity of the catalyst needed to detonate it.

Doubtless the explosion is the largest non-nuclear blast ever. Phi

Phil

I suspect it would depend on how one measures the blast.

Surely the SS Fort Stikene explosion in Bombay in 1944 would be more potent. Loss of life estimated at 1300+.

BW

J(Gleam)(Gleam)

 

[Mad Landsman]

Here you are, a big list of big bangs on Wikipedia...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_artificial_non-nuclear_explosions