How Big Was The Beirut Blast?
We all know by now that it was VERY big. However, Shipwreckedcrew offers a comparison that we in America can identity with.
It appears that the explosion in Beirut may have been the result of an abandoned shipment of ammonium nitrate that was left in storage at the Beirut port for seven years --it's a bit of a long story: Abandoned Shipment of Ammonium Nitrate Behind the Explosion in Beirut Today?? Recall that the bomb that Timothy McVeigh constructed to blow up the Murrah Federal Building was made from ammonium nitrate, too. So:
The Ammonium Nitrate being stored in a Beirut warehouse consisted of 2750 tons — 55,000 pounds or approximately 25,000 kgs. By comparison, the Ammonium Nitrate bomb built by Timonthy McVeigh that destroyed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City consisted of only 2200 kgs of Ammonium Nitrate. That means the Beirut explosion was roughly the equivalent of a bomb 12 times larger than the one that did this: