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Massive explosion in Tianjin, China (Update: at least 44 dead, 500+ injured)

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Beefy

Member
I don't get how people can joke about stuff like this. We could be looking at a huge lose of life and many many injured. Hopefully it isn't as bad as I fear.
 

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
I just don't understand some of the stats in that reddit post. Saying that no one within 1 km is alive, what is their source on that? Makes reading the rest of it very questionable. I mean, I'm sure it could be that high but a blanket assumption like that just seems very wrong as it has to be too early (at the time it was posted) to know.

They did update saying "(Busted)" but I'm not sure what that means.

Probably based on the estimated explosion size. People really should avoid speculating unless you really know a considerable amount on explosions and the like.
 
I just don't understand some of the stats in that reddit post. Saying that no one within 1 km is alive, what is their source on that? Makes reading the rest of it very questionable. I mean, I'm sure it could be that high but a blanket assumption like that just seems very wrong as it has to be too early (at the time it was posted) to know.

They did update saying "(Busted)" but I'm not sure what that means.

If it's just some guy on reddit then it's probably safer to assume that the bomb actually resurrected everyone within 1km with how reliable that is as a source.

Whatever, It's frustrating reading a lot of the fakery and click baiting on social media when things like this happen.
 
Wow, that was a lot bigger than I expected before I opened the video. The fuck, man? That must've been absolutely terrifying to watch, so many people must have assumed they were under attack.
 
Daybreak. Still a large plume of smoke rising.

CMPQxQ0UMAANI6E.jpg


Almost every window in this apartment looks damaged.

CMPQxelUEAEAiAW.jpg
 
Damn what a humongous explosion. That were a lot of lives extinguished :(

One can only hope the population density in that particular area wasn't high.
 

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Agreed on not funny but do we have confirmation that whoever filmed that is now dead?

Good question, the shockwave there looked very intense. It's simultaneously scarey and interesting how technology lets us capture stuff like that :(
 

Damaniel

Banned
Agreed on not funny but do we have confirmation that whoever filmed that is now dead?

Considering the force of the shockwave coming right at him (and all the stuff that was thoroughly destroyed right in his path), it's safe to assume that he's dead. If so, at least he didn't have much time to see it coming - even when the footage is slowed down, it's easy to see that the wave hit his location in an instant.

As for actual death toll, it's far too early to even speculate. However, I will say that 13 is almost certainly too low, and the 70k being speculated is definitely too high.
 

Kadin

Member
Agreed on not funny but do we have confirmation that whoever filmed that is now dead?
I haven't seen any confirmation but I can't see how someone would survive that. Looked like a bomb went off right outside those doors. Terrible.
 

Walpurgis

Banned
Halifax seems like an apt comparisdon based on the estimated size of the explosion (15t tnt for halifax, 21 for tianjin) and both being in urban areas. I imagine housing conditions have risen drastically, but stacked against it possible highrise buildings... If I hear that residential aera's are starting at a 500 meter range... I'm not gonna speculate...
Larger than Halifax? Oh dear. :(
The blast was the largest man-made explosion prior to the development of nuclear weapons, releasing the equivalent energy of roughly 2.9 kilotons of TNT. Nearly all structures within a half-mile (800 m) radius, including the entire community of Richmond, were obliterated. A pressure wave of air snapped trees, bent iron rails, demolished buildings, grounded vessels, and carried fragments of the Mont-Blanc for kilometres. Hardly a window in the city proper survived the concussion. Across the harbour, in Dartmouth, there was also widespread damage. A tsunami created by the blast wiped out the community of Mi'kmaq First Nations people that had lived in the Tuft's Cove area for generations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion#Explosion

I hope there weren't any bodies of water nearby.
Agreed on not funny but do we have confirmation that whoever filmed that is now dead?

Not that I've heard. The person looked too close to have survived because of the fire, debris and the shockwave.
 
Damn what a humongous explosion. That were a lot of lives extinguished :(

One can only hope the population density in that particular area wasn't high.

it happened on the dock. Docks are usualy clear of population. Especially the docks for storing dangerous goods. I live on the biggest harbor in france, a petrochemical terminal too, just like Tianjin. and we are several hundred meters from the dangerous stuff.
 
Good question, the shockwave there looked very intense. It's simultaneously scarey and interesting how technology lets us capture stuff like that :(

Just 3 PSI overpressure can be enough to cause fatalities just from the pressure wave alone, not even taking into account flying debris and other factors.
 

Walpurgis

Banned
it happened on the dock. Docks are usualy clear of population. Especially the docks for storing dangerous goods. I live on the biggest harbor in france, a petrochemical terminal too, just like Tianjin. and we are several hundred meters from the dangerous stuff.

It may have created a tsunami that caused more death and destruction.

edit: Scratch that. I read further on the Halifax explosion and that one took place in a harbor. That would explain the tsunami there.
Not even close. Not even in the same order of magnitude.

The (tiny, as atomic blasts go) Hiroshima explosion was the equivalent of 15 thousand TONS of high explosive.

The Halifax explosion was 2.9 kilotons and Hiroshima is 15 kilotons. So the Halifax explosion had 1/5 the blast yield of Little Boy. I don't know how this explosion compares to the Halifax one but if the blast radius is 1 km (Halifax was 800 m) then it is comparable.
 
One of the only positives is that it appeared to have happened in the middle of the night in an industrial area.

Prayers for all the victims of this.
 
If Halifax's explosion was

The blast was the largest man-made explosion prior to the development of nuclear weapons, releasing the equivalent energy of roughly 2.9 kilotons of TNT.

That's 2900 tons of TNT

I believe the quote for the second Tianjin explosion is 21 tons?

I mean this is awful and I worry about the amount of casualties both injured and dead but Halifax was more than 100 times larger so I don't think the outcomes are immediately comparable without further info. I still expect a lot of deaths and injuries though :(
 

Walpurgis

Banned
If Halifax's explosion was



That's 2900 tons of TNT

I believe the quote for the second Tianjin explosion is 21 tons?

I mean this is awful and I worry about the amount of casualties both injured and dead but Halifax was more than 100 times larger

Really?! I thought I read kilotons.
 
Really?! I thought I read kilotons.

Wouldn't kilotons have put it at greater than WWII nuclear bomb levels of power?

Here and here list it as 21 tons

The first blast was equal in strength to the detonation of three tons of TNT, while the second was the equivalent of 21 tons of the explosive, the China Earthquake Networks Centre said.

Local media also reported that the large explosion was triggered by an earlier weaker one. The first was the equivalent of 3 tons of TNT, and the second was equal to about 21 tons, the report said.
 

Suikoguy

I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Thankfully this did not occur during business hours!
Those pictures...
 

Javaman

Member
What freaks me out about explosions like this one and the meteorite explosion over Russia several years ago is that the natural tendency is to look outside and watch it. It's like instinct to do so. Then when the shockwave hits you end up with tons of people with their eyes cut up due to the windows blowing right into their faces.
 
What freaks me out about explosions like this one and the meteorite explosion over Russia several years ago is that the natural tendency is to look outside and watch it. It's like instinct to do so. Then when the shockwave hits you end up with tons of people with their eyes cut up due to the windows blowing right into their faces.

In this case it was even worse because the second major explosion was much larger than the first, so there would have been a lot of people stepping outside or standing at the window watching when that hit.
 

Walpurgis

Banned
They are all the same cars, looks like a car dealership/shipping company.

All those cars look the same, may be it is a car dealership? If they all belong to resident there would be all different types of cars.

I'm hoping they are just stock cars stored there, not people's cars.

I think the cars look the same because they were stripped of everything that made them unique. Like how all humans look the same when they are skeletons.

I guess their skeletons look pretty similar too.
 

NewDust

Member
euhm sorry guys, misread both my sources for the estimated size of the explosion, halifax was 2900 tons, tianjin 21 tons... Thats quite different.

I should not talk as if I understand these things where I have no knowledge of... So even the above cannot be read as fact...
 
What freaks me out about explosions like this one and the meteorite explosion over Russia several years ago is that the natural tendency is to look outside and watch it. It's like instinct to do so. Then when the shockwave hits you end up with tons of people with their eyes cut up due to the windows blowing right into their faces.

The shockwave is more damaging, modern glasses are designed to completely shatter under extreme pressure to minimize collateral damage.
 

Walpurgis

Banned
euhm sorry guys, misread both my sources for the estimated size of the explosion, halifax was 2900 tons, tianjin 21 tons... Thats quite different.

I should not talk as if I understand these things where I have no knowledge of... So even the above cannot be read as fact...

No worries. We're all just trying to figure out what happened.
 
I think the cars look the same because they were stripped of everything that made them unique. Like how all humans look the same when they are skeletons.

I guess their skeletons look pretty similar too.

We can still see the outer body of the cars... they look the same.
 
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