Tag: Ammonium nitrate

Rescuers scour Beirut blast zone as first arrests made

  by Hashem Osseiran and Jean-Marc Mojon Agence France Presse BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Rescuers combed through the rubble of Beirut port Friday in a search for survivors watched breathlessly by relatives of the missing, after an investigation into the huge blast made its first arrests. Shock has turned to anger in Lebanon since Tuesday’s colossal explosion killed at least 153 people and devastated swathes of the capital, with security forces firing tear gas at […]

Ammonium nitrate: fertilizer behind many industrial accidents

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Ammonium nitrate, which Lebanese authorities have said was the cause of the Beirut blast, is an odorless crystalline substance commonly used as a fertilizer that has been the cause of numerous industrial explosions over the decades. These include notably at a Texas fertilizer plant in 2013 that killed 15 and was ruled deliberate, and another at a chemical plant in Toulouse, France in 2001 that killed 31 people but was […]