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Why Beirut’s ammonium nitrate blast was so devastating
The tragedy is one of the largest industrial accidents involving the explosive chemical, and it hit Lebanon amid the coronavirus pandemic and an economic crisis.
On the evening of 4 August, Pierre Khoueiry was making birthday plans with his wife and two-year-old daughter when a blast shattered the windows of the family’s apartment in Beirut. About 2.5 kilometres away, in the city’s port, a powerful explosion had sent a huge orange fireball into the sky, followed by a massive shock wave that overturned cars, damaged buildings and shook the ground across the Lebanese capital. “It was a moment of great fear,” says Khoueiry, a genomics researcher at the American University of Beirut.