Introduction
You’ve all seen the sensationalist headline: “Hiroshima-like blast in Beirut”. There’s never been a better time in history than now to live in click bait mania. Was the blast in the Lebanese capital, Beirut a nuke? Was it even close to a nuke? I saw a few Youtube videos and argued on Twitter, so I’m a qualified expert. Let’s find out!
So Did Beirut Get Nuked?
The answer is NO. According to a Newsweek article, the blast itself was only about 10% yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. One doesn’t even need to be a damn rocket/bomb/time machine scientist to figure it out. Was the blast impressive? Yes indeed. But it wasn’t even the shape of a mushroom cloud, and the cloud did not even reach nearly the height of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, (the height of Mount Everest). Now, not to add insult to injury of the people who suffer there, it definitely did wreak havoc within a 10km radius and could be heard all the way from Cyprus. But let’s not jump to conclusions that it was some kind of attack, (I’m looking at you, Donnie the Orangeman). We all know it was the result of the sky gods getting mad at Donald Trump for not offering his ritual sacrifices at Bohemian Grove this year. Do you hear me, Alex Jones?! We all knew it before you.
Anyway, the explosion which is still under investigation resulted in a blast of stored ammonium nitrate estimated to be equivalent to 2 kilotons of TNT. That’s 2,000 tons of TNT. Here’s some perspective: It takes about 1 kilogram of TNT to destroy a car, while Hiroshima’s “Little Boy” Uranium bomb was 15 kilotons, and Nagasaki’s “Fat Man” Plutonium bomb was about 23 kilotons. Nowadays, these are just like little puffs of smoke compared to the shit the world has created.
Today, at least in the US arsenal, a W-76-2 Warhead (considered a small bomb) has the blast yield of about 50 kilotons of TNT. Yes, you’ve heard it right, it’s ONLY 3-4 times bigger than the originals dropped on Japan. That’s like saying, “Hey! We’ll only punch you in the face 3 or 4 more times compared to the crazier shit we have!” But that’s humanity. We never have enough time and money to cure cancer or poverty, but we always have enough time and money to figure out how to vaporize your insides before the oxygen in your blood causes you to implode and disintegrate.
Anyway, I’m not going to go over the entire US Nuclear arsenal, (Would nukes be considered as a Second Amendment right? Hmm), but I’ll give you a brief example of the destructive capabilities of nukes.
The largest nuke ever tested by the US was called “Castle Bravo”, a 15 MEGATON thermonuclear hydrogen bomb, which is 1,000 times larger than Hiroshima’s bomb. That’s 15 MILLION Tons of TNT! Meanwhile, the Soviets created the largest explosion EVER: The Czar Bomba. Yep, even the commies had to give it a royal name because they knew that a 50 megaton bomb would leave a huge smooch in the earth’s surface. Apparently, the blast was so big, that the aircrew that dropped the bomb almost didn’t fly out on time. Thank the sky gods, that they didn’t test the original bomb which was 100 megatons. The destruction was so severe that the Soviets concluded that it had no strategic purpose and never fielded it again. I mean, I hate the world too, but really? 50 million tons of TNT is excessive.
So in conclusion, the blast in Beirut was definitely one of the largest, non-nuclear blasts ever created, but not a nuke. After looking up the sizes of explosions, it’s easier to discern and not fall for clickbait traps. Not that I don’t do that, in fact, my expert YouTubing skills account for it! Also, I’ve posted a link to a site that can show you the blast radius of any nuke in a city near you! Just in case you were wondering if you could survive it. Have a blast! Oh wait..
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