The Beirut Blast There are a lot of inconsistencies in the narrative development of the explosion in Beirut:

POTUS says during press conference that it was a bomb and/or attack confirmed by generals.  MSM is saying it was an accident.

Media is widely reporting that it was 2,900 tons of ammonium nitrate (NH₄NO₃)(fertilizer) which caused the explosion.  There are some problems with an AN explosion:

1) "At high enough temperatures, however, ammonium nitrate can violently decompose on its own. This process creates gases including nitrogen oxides and water vapour. It is this rapid release of gases that causes an explosion.

Ammonium nitrate decomposition can be set off if an explosion occurs where it’s stored, if there is an intense fire nearby...It’s relatively difficult for a fire to trigger an ammonium nitrate explosion. The fire would need to be sustained and confined within the same area as the ammonium nitrate prills."

Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-ammonium-nitrate-the-chemical-that-exploded-in-beirut/

2) FOX News is reporting, as are other sources, that 300,000 people are displaced and "the entire city" felt the effects of the blast.  That's pretty much the entire population of the city proper.  A radius from the blast at 5km would cover about 80% of Beirut, approximately 300k of 360k population.  This article shows that windows as far as 15 mi away were broken and the heavy damage encompassed all of Beirut and beyond: https://www.caritas.eu/beirut-blast-caritas-responds/

3) Now the science: 1 PSI is considered the amount of overpressurization to blow windows.  At 20 PSI, almost the fatality rate is almost 100%.  Pay very close attention to the damage inflicted on this chart, as caused by an explosion: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docket/archive/pdfs/NIOSH-125/125-ExplosionsandRefugeChambers.pdf

4) Now let's talk about explosions.  I'm being very loose with this.  Please feel free to point out any errors in my hypothesis.  AN can be explosive if it builds up during offgassing from poor storage.  The fireworks factory explosion, in theory, could have set off the 2,900 tons (important: 2,900 tons = 2.9 kilotons (kt).  Kt is the measure used to describe the power of a nuclear explosion in terms of TNT equivalent.  AN has a TNT relative effectiveness of 0.42, meaning that it is 42% as powerful as TNT.  So, 2,900 tons of AN has the explosive equivalency of 1,218 tons of TNT = a 1.2kt TNT equivalency.

Let's plug that 1.2kt explosive yield into Nukemap.org, widely accepted as a 90%+ accurate calculator of nuclear blast effects and look at the [damage in Beirut](https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=1.2&lat=33.9020604&lng=35.5172136&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&crater=1&psi=20,5,1&rem=&therm=_3rd-100,_3rd-50&cloud=1&zm=13).  Notice that the 1PSI blast radius is roughly 1.25km from the POI.  Mentioned earlier, windows as far as 15mi = 24km away were blown out.  10X farther than the light damage ring.  The crater diameter is 40m = 131' on the NukeMap simulation.  Satellite imagery [Title Here](https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/world/satellite-images-beirut-explosion-before-after-trnd/index.html) shows that the crater is slightly larger than the warehouse building.  The warehouse scales out at 360' long, call it a 400' diameter crater.  

Misty Picture was one of the largest, non-nuclear explosions in history conducted by DoD to simulate a nuclear detonation.  It was part of the aforementioned calibration tests.  The misty picture detonation was 4,675 (4.6KT) of ANFO (ammonium nitrate + fuel oil mixture), 320 lbs of high explosive (HE) and several smaller booster charges required to get a perfect blast (fireworks igniting 2,700 tons of off-gassing ammonium nitrate does not make for a perfect explosion).  

Go [here](https://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/site-of-misty-picture-test-explosion/view/google/) and look just north of the building.  You'll see the remnants of the blast crater.  I measured it generously at 300' diameter vs. the 400' diameter of the Beirut blast.

Tthe Beirut blast crater is larger than a DOD 8kt nuke simulation crater.  The known light damage (1PSI) extends out to almost 15 mi vs the ~1mi @ 1PSI ring shown in the simulator.  The number of seriously injured people seen all over the city seems more consistent with the 10,700 estimated injured (2,580 fatalities) estimated by the simulator.

Summary: That blast in Beirut wasn't 2,900 tons of AN.  It was something much more powerful and no signs of radiation sickness are being reported in the news.  Note: I have seen 1 report claiming that a radioactive signature has been detected in the blast area.  There is also a report showing a couple stills of what looks like a fast moving object moving towards the impact site.

Have at it.

Edit: For those that think this was a nuke, where are the pictures of all the radiation damage?  Not to mention all non-hardened electronics in Beirut would have been bricked by the EMP from the blast.