The massive explosions in a Beirut port on Tuesday provoked fear, then speculation after an eerie, white cloud enveloped the lenses of bystander videos, with …
The massive explosions in a Beirut port on Tuesday provoked fear, then speculation after an eerie, white cloud enveloped the lenses of bystander videos, with many suggesting online that it looked something like a nuclear blast. But the building consensus among arms experts and Lebanese officials is that the explosion, which killed at least 63 people and injured thousands more, may have been ignited by burning chemicals stored at a warehouse. Many not accustomed to seeing large explosions may conflate mushroom clouds and spherical blast waves as nuclear, said Jeffrey Lewis, an arms-control expert and professor at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. “But some of the things we associate with nuclear explosions are just associated with explosions.” Few things can be concluded from the videos, including some filmed before the bigger of the blasts, which Lewis said may have begun when munitions in storage caught fire.
