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Mizal

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
I know everyone has already been watching these, but since it's a significant event in this year's apocalypse bingo, might as well archive some videos/reactions here. And anyway it seems weird not to talk about it at all. We all watched a city get leveled in crisp HD in real time, from a hundred different angles. Isn't technology amazing? I'm not gonna lie, this is the coolest explosion I've ever seen. Can't watch this video without my brain being all holy crap that's amazing! Aftermath was significantly less cool and more depressing. :( Since I originally heard about this at work yesterday it wasn't till today till I sat down and really realized the extent of just how fucked the city was. This woman had a very memorable wedding day. The man filming this is definitely dead: So is this one: There are a lot of these 'definitely dead' videos going around and not everyone wants to see those so please mark them. Anything with actual bodies just link with a warning. Sort of surreal that with decades of all the ruckus in the Middle East, it's an accidental explosion that does the most damage. Moral of the story is don't store 3000 tons of explosives in your capital without any safety precautions, at least it's a very clearcut one. If any of this stuff was upsetting to you, uh, here are some kittens living with a baby otter:
Killa_Robot

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
That last video is pretty close to a 'definitely dead' video tbh.
Mizal

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
Okay, Ace.
Killa_Robot

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
Did you actually watch it? No one is just gonna walk away from that kind of force.
OriginalClamurai

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago

I would. 

Mizal

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
"This guy is definitely dead!" "So is this guy." Killa: hey i think that second guy might be dead???
Killa_Robot

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
Lol. I saw you say to give warnings for those kind of videos but didn't see the line above each video.
EndMaster

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago

The girl in the wedding dress one is fascinating to me due to the way it looks like the beginning of some movie.

Here's a longer version of it.

Mizal

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
I guess it's the quality of phone cameras now combined with the actual content, but a lot of these give me this weird found footage movie vibe that takes a few seconds to shake.
BerkaZerka

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
Holy moly! That's like an explosion right out of anime! Unbelievable.
Mizal

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
My co workers being largely of the 'go home and turn on the TV to watch the news if you watch it at all' type of people, they were only vaguely aware of this because of course all the prime news time has to be devoted to bitching about Trump, every day, forever. My ability to access twitter has led to brief celebrity status, they all want my exclusive explosion videos.
Bill_Ingersoll

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago

As I recall, there was a very similar explosion in West, TX a few years ago, caused by similar (same?) chemical ingredients. The only reason it got second-tier news treatment was because it occurred at the same time the two Boston Marathon bomber manhunt was unfolding on live television.

These phone videos just make me want to say... dude, put the phone away and get out of there.

Mizal

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
Yep, that was in 2013. Ammonium nitrate is used in fertilizer
so it is a very cheap and easy way to get on an FBI watch list if you're a farmer.

If you just look up 'Texas chemical plant explosion' you'll get plenty of results.

https://youtu.be/jzDC3iKbTzY

This guy thought it was cool to park that close with his daughter in the car and film the fire. (They're fine but she's freaking out at the end with collapsed eardrums.) He was an idiot, but still better than the guy in Lebanon filming from what looked like literally across the street.

These 2013 videos aren't as wowie zowie cool and amazing as the ones we make on phones now though.

hetero_malk

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago

I think I read somewhere that even if that dude had ran at full speed away, the shockwave still would have killed him 

OriginalClamurai

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago

Best thing you could do is lay down inline with the blast, give it as little cross section as possible to hit.

Good luck at that range, though. 

Bill_Ingersoll

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago

He was pretty clearly in a neighboring building, directly overlooking the warehouse that was about to blow, and the "after" photos of that port complex show everything but that grain silo was leveled.

Therefore I wouldn't bother buying that guy a birthday present this year.

Mizal

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
Obviously he should have grabbed a concrete block and jumped in the water.
Bill_Ingersoll

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago

I have to say, it's easy to see why there are so many videos of this and why people weren't worried about being so close. At the point where every one of these videos begins, it looks like a fireworks show going on inside the building. Cool, right? Get the phone out and zoom in a little bit. Then it's Armageddon.

BerkaZerka

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
True, not like it looked too bad at first or that anyone would think pending Hiroshima.
Mizal

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
Oh for sure, it just looks like a big smoke cloud with some sparkles at first. Although I did see a short clip of the first explosion and it made this beautiful mushroom cloud, so that was just a lil bit ominous. Not too many of that one caught on camera though since it'd have to have been from purely accidental timing.

Still, there's the dead journalist who was a ways off and I'm sure believed he was safe, and then there's right across the street from a burning building guy. Even if we know now he couldn't have made it to safety on time anyway, still a dumb as hell thing to do.

I guess over the course of time with some help from natural selection, people will develop better instincts for this kind of thing: C'mon people, turn the phone sideways when filming your dramatic demise, damn.
ISentinelPenguinI

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago

If there's one thing I know about Beirut, it's that I give more of a fuck about it than Bolivia. I don't know what CoG thinks, though.

BerkaZerka

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
It's a morbid thought, but I wonder how many more close-up videos of this are going to show up as they recover phones from those still burried in rubble.

Also curious where the demarcation line is between phone destroyed too (and) phone survives, but not user...
Chanbot

Beirut's Big Boom

4 years ago
bet it depends on the phone and where they stood reletive to the buildings that got instantly deleted around them. If only a nokia could take video, someone couls just throw it in the explosion and pick it up later and we'd get an inside look of what went on.