Talk:2015 Tianjin explosions

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No mention of the 3rd explosion on august 12th?[edit]

This video shows there was at least 3 explosions the first night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOTaBI4bp-0 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:1D60:1A50:153A:764D:51DA:93A7 (talk) 11:30, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Images[edit]

The caption "Two security inspectors wearing respirators near the barricade tape of the scene" is incorrect. The men are only wearing dust masks. Respirator implies at least a filter cartrdige, and usually SCBA. I'll leave it to someone else to make the edit if warranted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.234.24.22 (talk) 22:35, 18 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dozens of video and pictures show explosion and snarled traffic. Take these and find these. I would do it myself but I have to go very soon where I'm being called next. But please find some that are PD or GNU. Thanks and bless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.196.182.97 (talk) 04:32, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We'll need to wait until someone brings a picture of their own, otherwise someone'll delete it again, alleging a violation of copyright. --Maxl (talk) 10:00, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the places in China cannot access Wikipedia, it seems that there don't have any good quality video and pictures can be upload to here. Meanwhile, they are not willing to PD or GNU their works. So finally the only way is use "fair use" image--Wing1990hk (talk) 13:38, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Because we have Tiananman Square etc., not lack of Internet of course. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 13:46, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I have uploaded many free images at Commons:Category:2015 Tianjin explosion (taken by Voice of America thus in the public domain). Feel free to use them. --Tomchen1989 (talk) 14:26, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ruihai Logistics[edit]

It would be useful to have a proper link to the web page for this organization. Edward Vielmetti (talk) 00:42, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Official Site (Chinese): http://www.ruihailogistics.com/. Zanetu (talk) 01:10, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This link is 403 Forbidden from my location, Canada. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.196.182.97 (talk) 04:30, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's been offline for a while. You can retrieve part of its homepage via Google Cache. Zanetu (talk) 09:57, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It says server not found, that's not the same as "forbidden". --Maxl (talk) 10:01, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You can find images from its webpages via a Google image search Abductive (reasoning) 18:31, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It appears to be up again now. --- TheChampionMan1234 09:12, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Size[edit]

Problem is blast damage versus heat damage.

I would agree, but let's check the Richter magnitude scale and find the number of Joules and tons of TNT equivalent for a magnitude 2.9 earthquake. It's probably equivalent to this 21 tons TNT estimate. The problem is, only a small portion of the energy of the blast transferred into the ground, which would register on the earthquake seismometers. Understand? So the true TNT equivalent, if much larger, would be not surprising. But let's look for credible sources. I've seen from the Weibo videos that complete destruction occurred within a calculated 0.9-1.5 km, meaning incineration of people and fire pouring down streets into homes. Scores of people were affected this way, probably thousands. But again, let's look into finding credible sources. God bless, and God bless China.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.196.182.97 (talk) 04:30, 13 August 2015‎
It is not 21 tons. It is 21 tonnes. According to the BBC report, it says "21 tonnes of the explosive"[1], and also, according to the official microblog of China Seismological Network Breaking News, it says "相当于21吨TNT" (equivalent to 21 tonnes of TNT)[2]. --Yejianfei (talk) 07:37, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it may be more but 21 tonnes is what has been reported so far. We can only use things which are sourced. Everything else would be alleged to be "original research", something deemed undesirable on the Wikipedia. --Maxl (talk) 10:03, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The Hiroshima blast was powerful enough to knock down all buildings (except strong concrete ones) and completely destroy them to 1.609 km. The atomic bomb was 15 kilotons so this is something. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 13:24, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
15 kilotons is 15,000 tons. This is estimated to be 21 tons (or tonnes). The two are incomparable. Twirly Pen (Speak up) 04:37, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The OP said complete destruction was approaching a mile, I guess the "Peoples'" Republic was being honest this time when they said it was 21 tonnes as 3.0 on the Richter Scale turns out to be a half tonne TNT deep underground. Maybe OP made a math error somewhere. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:32, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps. The Hiroshima bomb created a firestorm two miles in diameter. While fires continue from this blast, they are nowhere near the level of intensity nor could be considered anything close to a firestorm. Twirly Pen (Speak up) 00:18, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Precise center of explosion[edit]

It would be nice to indicate to precise center of the explosion on the map, but I'm not sure where that was? Does anyone have the details? Dragons flight (talk) 09:44, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • I used maps.baidu.com to find the company, 瑞海国际物流有限公司 Ruihai International Logistics Limited. I can't link you directly to the coordinates in maps.baidu.com, but they have better aerial images of the site than Google. Abductive (reasoning) 16:49, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I lived in the area and traveled there and can tell you this is the exact location where you see the cars and the containers blown around, If you look on the map and compare to pictures you can see they all line up.
99 Di Qi Da Jie
Binhai Xinqu, Tianjin Shi, China
39.041396, 117.735490
So I would imagine the epicenter would be very very close to this area.
There seems to be about a block or two difference between the way Chinese websites and US websites display the exact same coordinates. The company's location is to the east of the Donghai Road Station train (tram?) station and the S11 major roadway. Abductive (reasoning) 20:21, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Epicenter, I wonder what this was on the richter scale? like a 2.5? Glas(talk)Nice User skin 21:41, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Based on this tweet of an aerial photo, https://twitter.com/Alby/status/632722654403915777 I worked out the actual coordinates of the explosion using Google Earth to be 39.039794°N, 117.736446°E. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AndyLeeRobinson (talk • contribs) 18:27, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinates[edit]

This might be finicky, but anyone else notice that the location of Tianjin on the auto-generated map is way off? Not familiar enough with the China map location template to fix this myself (tried to do so but don't want to fiddle around too much on a high-visibility page), but someone should. —Verrai 11:58, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • The actual downtown part of the city is about 1 hour bus ride away from the port. We call the port area tanggu and in reality it is its own little city. There is a train that connects the two cities and takes about 20-30 minutes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.1.241.16 (talk) 19:43, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • The map (since removed) showed the location as roughly the site of Binzhou, quite far indeed from the port of Tianjin. —Verrai 22:58, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Associated Press reports Government Censorship[edit]

Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CHINA_PORT_EXPLOSION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
See edit at: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2015_Tianjin_explosion&diff=prev&oldid=675917084

As is customary during disasters, Chinese authorities tried to keep a tight control over information. Police kept journalists and bystanders away with a cordon about 1 or 2 kilometers (about a mile) from the site. On China's popular microblogging platform of Weibo, some users complained that their posts about the blasts were deleted, and the number of searchable posts on the disaster fluctuated, in a sign that authorities were manipulating or placing limits on the number of posts.
The website of the logistics company became inaccessible Thursday.
The Tianjin government said that because of the blasts it had suspended online access to public corporate records. These records might be used to trace the ownership of Ruihai. It was not clear whether the blackout was due to technical damage related to the explosion. No one answered the phone at the Tianjin Market and Quality Supervision Administration or the Tianjin Administration for Industry and Commerce on Thursday.
Ruihai Logistics said on its website - before it was shut down - that it was established in 2011 and is an approved company for handling hazardous materials. It said it handles 1 million tons of cargo annually.

Rick (talk) 15:23, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I checked through the recent edits, and generally speaking, most of the changes today are good faith edits. The editor that you highlighted appears to have an agenda, but that pattern isn't repeating so far. I can increase the article's protection if the issue ramps up. Hiberniantears (talk) 18:29, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

English language WikiPedia policy on censorship[edit]

Its fine for any country to set their own policies and procedures to control broadcast, print, and social media, and other Internet usage, however it sees fit, as long as that censorship and control is exerted only within its own country borders.

However, the English language Wikipedia should follow a Freedom of the Press policy and not be “censored” or “cleaned up” to remove anything that might be considered negative or embarrassing to any government.

Content on the English Wikipedia site is subject to the laws of the United States and State of Virginia,where the majority of Wikipedia's servers are located. Even the Chinese language WikiPedia is located on U.S. soil.

This article would benefit from a brief, factual, well sourced discussion of censorship related to this event. Multiple, reliable and respected sources have reported it in considerable detail:

See:

Rick (talk) 01:21, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Any objection to restoring those edits? Geogene (talk) 01:27, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly have no objection to factual information regarding censorship by the Chinese government of information regarding the details of this event being posted in the article. ProfessorTofty (talk) 05:44, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to the editors who reverted the deletions and for doing a great job being factual and concise, without fanning flames of East/West media conflict for no legitimate reason. Personally I'm glad Will Ripley acknowledged that morbid shots around the TEDA Hospital would be inappropriate, and hope that all international journalists will respect all local laws, customs and the dignity of families of the injured. Just because its sensational doesn't mean its great journalism.

A quick tour through the history tab here shows numerous attempts to censor the Wikipedia article, so I'm happy too that the padlock is applied here, and there are no more anonymous deletions.

Found a few more articles over the past 24 hours that well document censorship. I also get a a sense of a strong but latent dislike for it among the citizens on the streets of China. Weibo coverage of the dislike of censorship seems "unstoppable" and I'm and am amazed how creative the posters can be at flying under the radar while fully expressing themselves. I wish we could get statistically valid opinion of the people on the street in China. Real reaction, real unrepressed feelings.

http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Economy/Chinese-authorities-hit-with-criticism
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/13/four-questions-chinese-people-want-answered-after-deadly-blast-tianjin-citizen-media/
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/08/14/chinas-censors-scramble-to-contain-online-fallout-after-tianjin-blast/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/15/world/asia/rising-anger-but-few-answers-after-explosions-in-tianjin.html

For example:
Government officials, acutely aware of concerns over the fire, have sought to suppress unauthorized information. They seemed unprepared for the tough questions posed at a news conference in Tianjin on Friday, including why hazardous chemicals had been stockpiled so near populated areas. They abruptly ended the conference.

"With uncharacteristic defiance, some Chinese news outlets did their own reporting anyway."

There seems to be some basic questioning too if water was the best thing to be first applied to a chemical fire.
Rick (talk) 02:28, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder there is general media bias in English media since they all reported same fault facts on Tianjin Satellite TV station. The fact can easily refuted by Chinese media yet so far no English media explain and correct the circumstance. Please add my translation to the section if the objection is the goal of wikipedia. 

According to Hong Kong's Phenoix newspaper, local Tianjin News station reports the story around the clock.  Only Tianjin satellite TV station (which is part of national broadcast) didn't show the news. http://news.ifeng.com/a/20150814/44432137_0.shtml

"澄清：天津卫视的确在播韩剧，因为据广电规定，卫视未经批准不得加播。但是，天津地方台第一时间直播了爆炸现场。天津当地半夜派出了100多名记者，影像资料传给央视。而且，13日的《天津日报》头版就是爆炸事故及救援，反应比《人民日报》、《光明日报》都快。另外，天津卫视今晚发布公告，停播娱乐节目悼念遇难者。没有哪里比天津更关心这场事故。"

Translate

"Clarification: Tianjin TV broadcast drama indeed, because, according to the broadcasting regulations may not add broadcast TV without approval. However, the Tianjin local stations broadcast the first scene of the explosion. Tianjin local night sent more than 100 reporters, the information passed to the CCTV images. Moreover, the "Tianjin Daily" on the front page on the 13th is the explosion and rescue response than the "People's Daily", "Guangming Daily" almost. In addition, Tianjin TV tonight announcement, entertainment programs off the air in memory of the victims. Nowhere is more concerned about the accident than Tianjin." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.138.68.49 (talk) 12:57, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My own translation:

Clarification: Tianjin Satellite Television was indeed broadcasting Korean Dramas after the event, since in accordance to Chinese broadcasting regulations, satellite stations are not permitted to broadcast unscheduled content without permission. However, the local cable station did report live on the event as soon as possible. Local journalists were dispatched in the middle of the night to report on the explosions, and the footage they created was sent to CCTV. Also, the August 13 edition of Tianjin Daily featured a report about the explosions and the subsequent rescue efforts on its front page; it responded to the event faster than two major Chinese newspapers, the People's Daily and GuangMing Daily. Also, Tianjin Satellite Television issued a public bulletin tonight in memory of those who died in this tragedy, interrupting regular programming. No other group of people is more concerned about the explosion in Tianjin than the people of tianjin itself.

Wanglijun1964 (talk) 14:32, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My own proposed addition:
According to Hong Kong's Phenoix newspaper, the local news station of Tianjin reported on the explosions live. Tianjin Satellite TV, which is broadcast nationally, instead broadcasted Korean Dramas after the explosions, since satellite stations are not permitted to broadcast unscheduled content without further approval under Chinese broadcasting regulations.
I believe that my alternative to 75.138.68.49's planned change is more neutral, since it indicated why the satellite station did not broadcast news about the event.Wanglijun1964 (talk) 14:41, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Rename article as 2015 Tianjin explosions?[edit]

As there was more than one explosion, and as many news headlines refer to "Tianjin explosions" in the plural (examples: New York Times, BBC), should the article be renamed accordingly?--A bit iffy (talk) 15:43, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Seems reasonable, there were multiple explosions after all. Celestialghost (talk) 16:45, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

：excuse me, I think the name of this article should be [Tianjin Binhai New Area explosions] while cannot be [2015 Tianjin explosions],cause it's not the whole city that suffered explosions,just the Binhai new area. such a name is unfair to china and tianjin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dolnaid (talk • contribs) 08:02, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Spam[edit]

Anybody want to get rid of that shady GoFundMe link that keeps appearing in the body of the article? Geogene (talk) 03:37, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For anyone reading this, I removed the link shortly after this request was made. Dustin (talk) 23:13, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Blast way way way bigger and mightier than shown in inset photo[edit]

The inset rightside photo does not depict just how GIGANTIC and I mean GIGANTIC the string of three explosions got to - especially the last two blasts.

Are stills from the below link allowed to be harvested into some kind of captions?

Utterly breathtaking and soulmurderingly harrowing http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0e5_1439474009#comment_page=2

RIP the folk of Tianjin — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.249.160 (talk) 04:27, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There needs to be something about the 1900ish Halifax Explosion[edit]

It was supposedly twice as large Glas(talk)Nice User skin 21:40, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There's already a link to the list of largest artificial non-nuclear explosions. Twirly Pen (Speak up) 04:43, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

About "Censor"[edit]

The article suggests that keeping journalists at some distance from the explosion site is due to an desire of censoring. Yet it really struck me as somewhat biased.

1) Does this restriction exist? If so, in what fashion/manner? (Verification)

2) If it exists, can it be proved that this restriction of distance is (mainly) because of censoring, such as the attempt of trying to hide or block particular kinds of information, but not of some other concerns? (NPOV; or "let's not automatically assume maliciousness")

Rethliopuks (talk) 14:33, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Those are two unrelated sentences. I will remove the tag. Debresser (talk) 21:57, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification: that satellite televisions cannot broadcast unscheduled content is a policy that have rather long existed; it is not a new policy specifically targeted to this incident. Rethliopuks (talk) 03:09, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Still from the first smaller explosion[edit]

I took this still image of the first smaller explosion from one of the videos: http://imgur.com/D9IhwaE — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blah20152322332 (talk • contribs) 17:58, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Crater images:

http://imgur.com/gYCmfAd http://imgur.com/qc7FPxa — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blah20152322332 (talk • contribs) 18:30, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 15 August 2015[edit]

Within the section on "Response" to the 2015 Tianjin Binhai area explosions, I'd like to have the following added on behalf of the Tianjin Binhai Red Cross. Thank you! The following is translated from their web page, which is located here: http://www.redcross.org.cn/hhzh/zh/newscenter/mtdt/201508/t20150813_26077.html

August 12 evening, after the explosion of Binhai New Area, Tianjin Red Cross first time held an emergency meeting to study the deployment of rescue work, requiring departments to act quickly, the overall arrangement, scientific and orderly to do relief work.

Binhai New Area, the entire staff of the Red Cross stayed up all night, according to the actual needs of rescue, emergency deployment of tents, first aid kits, slippers and other supplies to the zone of the second primary temporary shelters and Harbour area.

Binhai New Area, according to the Red Cross vice president Liu Aijun introduction, the Binhai New Area Red Cross after receiving the message the explosion, the entire staff at the first time in the region of the Red Cross disaster preparedness and response center set, according to the district government and district emergency Office's instructions, emergency allocation of tents, first aid kits and slippers to the zone of the second primary temporary shelters. In the morning 4 o'clock, the Red Cross tent has good support in the primary school playground, which is the scene set up the first batch of tents, the settlements currently housed number of about a thousand people.

Early morning 5 o'clock half, Binhai New Area Red Cross staff and immediately rushed to the Harbour City, is where the first aid kits and tents sent to area residents.

According to local needs, Aug. 13 morning 6:00, Tianjin Red Cross emergency allocation of tents and household boxes ranking batch of relief supplies to the Binhai New Area, every family is equipped with a three-part box of clothing, rain gear, tableware , toiletries and slippers and other daily necessities.

Jbkenaston (talk) 19:08, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This article is no longer Semi-Protected, so you can now edit the article yourself, but please ensure that any additions are properly sourced, to reliable sources and you maintain a neutral point of view - Arjayay (talk) 08:26, 18 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

known blastborne effects in good detail[edit]

Would think it of interest for this wiki page to include the KNOWN effects of the blasts on people dwelling in the NEAREST inhabited residential buildings which loom in the background in most visual images of this event.

Stuff like, what injuries and trauma the blast wreaked upon the residents IN the skyscrapers but also at street level pedestrians and drivers, and any differences and so forth. The extent of blast damage on the skyscrapers - like was the blast damage greater higher up a building or lower down. How did the blasts and shockwaves effect the lifts in the towers? Effects on windows and building structures - did the buildings shake?, did others nearer the blast not shake somehow? what is the aftermath control - do the nearestmost building show a 'sea' of boarded up windows? What has been the official aftermath advice given to residents? And, any anomalies like if blastborne damage was uneven and factors why. What did most dwellers THINK to themselves whilst the blasts took place? It was thankfully a nighttime explosion, but within what distance did most of the deaths happen? Despite it being overall an gigantic blast(s), most blasts even that size will not(?) be deathly after such and such feet? Alos, need to spotlight that aftermath 'container-knoll' - where metal containers have not only been blown into a heap but also somehow been twisted and crushed up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.249.160 (talk) 21:54, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Considering the current clampdown Chinese authorities have over access right now, it doesn't look likely that such detailed information will be available anytime soon to be reliably reported. Twirly Pen (Speak up) 02:43, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
95.150.249.160, http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0e5_1439474009 has people giving their opinions on what it was like to watch the blasts from about 4000 feet away. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dc0_1439444275 is from about 1000 feet away and seems to show the first of the two larger explosions. Overall, it seems people 2000 feet and further were not affected except for an unlucky few hit by debris. The nearest residences were 2000 feet away. I'd be more worried about chemical exposure. --Marc Kupper|talk 09:05, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for input. One of the videos mentions vaporization (would imagine blasts were certainly big enough for that to happen), other than film of military blast test sites, is there daytime aftermath images of areas of Tianjin within any kind of 'vaporize-zone' - a 'before and after' of buildings and nothingness/debrisfield? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.249.160 (talk) 16:38, 22 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Did the blasts cause any known 'blast fishing' effect in the dock waters?[edit]

Were fish and sea-mammals known to dwell in the dock waters in that neighbourhood of Tianjin where the blast(s) happened? - if so, did the Tianjin explosions have any kind of 'blast fishing' effect?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_fishing — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.249.160 (talk) 22:00, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This link talks of (by way of poisoning rather than blast effects) "thousands of dead fish" "washed-up on Thursday" (only 'thousands'?) "six miles from Tianjin" note weird lack of scavenging seagulls in still-pics - maybe trolling photos or proof that fish poisonous hence lack interest by seagulls? Note again, pics seem to show (though slightly sundry sized fish) ONLY one breed of fish - maybe somehow a good sign? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH0uEhQpVYU — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.249.160 (talk) 18:40, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The article doesn't mention that it all happened on an reclaimed island(?)[edit]

Not come across the words:

"man-made"

"artificial"

"reclaimed"

- maybe worth mentioning that the blast-site happened seemingly on the newest bit of docks reclaimed from the sea(?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.249.160 (talk) 22:13, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Seems a bit irrelevant. This article is about the explosions itself, not the history of land reclamation by Tainjin. Twirly Pen (Speak up) 02:36, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

- In hinsight, I was right all along and something about the explosions happening on reclaimed land needs to be said in the article.

1. the article already mentions something about something called a "fire pond" - folk may get muddled by this since 2. the Tianjin explosion 'blast-set' left a mystery(?) pond, which has become an important taking-point for many folk on the web. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.67.231.251 (talk) 02:34, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

not "irrelevant" if the soil below liquified as is known to occur during earthquakes and thereby could have been responsible for added damage - thus i am stating that ommission of the "reclaimed" is actually original research - since as you just said YOU THINK THAT the article is not about the HISTORY of the land - but your opinion of the article not being about history is original research--68.231.26.111 (talk) 08:57, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Under no circumstance were these explosions due to an earthquake. The Richter scale measurements were the fault, not the cause, of these explosions. There is no WP:OR in my statement that I think this. The sources say so for me. By all means, if you can find a source that doesn't impede on WP:NOTSCANDAL, as described in another post of yours, then it can be added. I'm not trying to be harsh or come off as a member of the Chinese Internet Police, these are just the rules of Wikipedia as outlined long before Bush, Obama, or whatever else you fancy. Twirly Pen (Speak up) 11:19, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I have not seen any source mentioning this, and am also inclined to believe this to be irrelevant. -- Ohc ¡digame! 14:53, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The hole looked unnaturally dark and deep in the pictures I saw. Is it possible it just filled in with water cause the water table's so high as it's "fake" land? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:42, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Been watching Dr Judy Wood and I hadn't known the 9/11 twin towers (like the Tianjin docks blast site) were also built on RECLAIMED LAND. Apparently, Manhattan narrowly missed being flooded by the Hudson river breaking through the sea/river dyke under the twin towers known as the 'the tub'. So, yet again, another example of why article should mention that the site of the Tianjin blasts happened to be on reclaimed land. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.215.210.155 (talk) 21:02, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus of truther/conspiracy community[edit]

The consensus amongst the 'truther'/'conspiracy'/'hoax-busting' community should get a byword. Whether liked or not, they are an important part of life these days, and any thorough comment on this kind of an event warrants their input. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.249.160 (talk) 22:20, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Their opinions aren't notable, as far as I can tell. Titanium Dragon (talk) 23:21, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Truthers/conspiracy violates WP:NOTSCANDAL to the very tee. No, just... no. There are plenty of other places on the internet for that besides a verifiable, encyclopedia website. Twirly Pen (Speak up) 02:38, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

water and Sodium cyanide (calcium carbide?)[edit]

there has been ample speculation that firefighter induced hydrolysis of Sodium cyanide led to the more massive secondary explosion[3]. why is this not covered in the aritlce?--68.231.26.111 (talk) 08:52, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's calcium carbide that reacts violently with water, not sodium cyanide (which is dangerous poison, but not explosive with water). That said, we probably could talk about the calcium carbide risk, which doesn't seem to be mentioned at present. Dragons flight (talk) 09:27, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Because see WP:SPECULATION. Twirly Pen (Speak up) 11:11, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Casualties[edit]

Apart from the confirmed death total (104 or 105), current reports state that the number of 'missing' is 95, including 85 more firefighters. Rif Winfield (talk) 09:19, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I bet the real death count is higher. I bet the Chinese government and state media suppressed the real totals. 2600:8801:A506:C700:F401:8075:F915:3427 (talk) 03:37, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

orphaned link below[edit]

Many free images uploaded[edit]

I have uploaded many free images at Commons:Category:2015 Tianjin explosion (taken by Voice of America thus in the public domain). Feel free to use them. --Tomchen1989 (talk) 14:25, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Very nice thanks. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:43, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Usefulness of International Reaction Section[edit]

Most text in the international reaction section follows the standard template of condolences and do not seem to add value given the amount of text added. I propose we either have a few statements summarizing international response or list only material contributions, such as aid and human expertise, if any. Is there a wiki policy on this? FelixSeba7 (talk) 19:31, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Generally what happens in these kinds of articles is that once the media buzz around the event dies down a bit, these are removed or significantly trimmed. The problem with doing it now while the news is fresh is that well-meaning editors will come in and add them back in, and some may edit war when you remove them. This is generally just not worth the hassle. Not only that, but it's very hard to know which international reactions are notable and which are not while the event is current, although as it generally plays out most of them turn out to be non-notable and are thus deleted. Remember WP:DEADLINE. After about a year the only people editing this article will be seasoned editors who will consider notability much more seriously. But in the thick of it every comment in the news will end up in the article, which is why we have {{Current}} as a disclaimer. With the benefit of hindsight these articles are almost always significantly reworked. Eniagrom (talk) 08:07, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Reaction sections do have a place, I warrant, but not the sort exclusively containing empty rhetoric and meaningless platitudes as those reinstated in the Tianjin explosions article or the Baghdad bombing article. For every current events article where there is a Reactions section with these soundbites, there is one (if not more) without. There is, for example July 2009 Ürümqi riots – a Featured Article, no less. I particularly like the Reactions section in 2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests, which captures reactions informatively and is low on unencyclopaedic content. Therefore, I have once again removed it. -- Ohc ¡digame! 22:42, 18 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Need for "2015"[edit]

Couldn't the article name just be Tianjin explosions, does it really need to be "2015 Tianjin explosions"? Have there been newsworthy explosions in other years? WP:PRECISION generally discourages names from being more detailed than are necessary to define the topic. Dragons flight (talk) 20:23, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think the year prefix is standard. Maybe raise a WP:RM if you think it should be changed. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 07:32, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's actually not though. If you look at the list of largest artificial non-nuclear explosions there are 108 explosions listed. Many of these don't have dedicated articles (either no article exists, or the explosion is discussed as a subsection of a related article such as an article on the city or naval vessel where the explosion occurred). Of those explosions that do have dedicated articles, there are 32 with no year identifier in the title versus only 7 that do identify the year. We include years for natural disasters like earthquakes because they often recur, but that is presumably not likely with something like this, hence the year designation is unnecessary. Dragons flight (talk) 07:53, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Dragons flight has a point. PEPCON doesn't have a year, and the 2008 Toronto propane explosion is a redirect to a title without the year as well. Twirly Pen (Speak up) 08:14, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, here are the explosion articles that have the year in the title.
  1. 1887 Nanaimo mine explosion
  2. Mines in the Battle of Messines (1917) (As it was a planned event the article covers more than just the explosion)
  3. 1924 Nixon Nitration Works disaster
  4. Bombay Explosion (1944)
  5. 1983 Newark explosion
  6. 2007 Maputo arms depot explosion
  7. 2009 Cataño oil refinery fire
  8. 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
  9. 2015 Tianjin explosions
--Marc Kupper|talk 09:39, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Beijing and Tianjin were taken over in the large 1937 Battle of Beijing-Tianjin and occupied till 1945? (I don't know) which leaves a long time for accidental or intentional bombing of explosives factories or armories, sabotage or industrial accidents of the previous or something like that. But most people know that part of China was invaded in WWII so many who saw Tianjin explosions in a link wouldn't be sure if other explosions happened or not (including me). And some surely haven't heard of 2015's explosion cause they weren't exposed to news for many days on account of camping or falling in love and not doing anything else for many days or something like that. Whether this is enough to keep the 2015 I don't know. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:39, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Google Map has an offset in China[edit]

Please be aware of that Google Map has an offset in China google map in china offset. The site of the original explosion is here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/39%C2%B002'25.1%22N+117%C2%B044'40.0%22E/@39.0403253,117.7443843,15.75z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0 http://j.map.baidu.com/1_ou5 --Tomchen1989 (talk) 00:55, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Transitioning from "sensationalism" to high quality encyclopedic content[edit]

I looked at a proxy event (Sinking of Dong Fang Zhi Xing) to gleen insight into how general interest (as estimated by page views per day decays and eventually stabilizes on WikiPedia - with an eye on how editor and audience participation in this article may go over the next view weeks and months.

Social media, TV, and daily newspapers are produced and consumed very rapidly. The "tail interest" in such content exists for a long period but at exceptionally low (historical research) levels of general public interest. Wikipedia has a similar rapid decay in interest of news events, but also provides (at least the potential for) a longer, fatter tail, richer analysis, and the retention of more comprehensive historical information.

Based on the Page Views - Sinking of Dong Fang Zhi Xing I make the following observations.

  • The "red hot period" was day 1 to 5. Page views dropped precipitously after 5 days (95% of 20 day page views occurred by day 5). Day one is clearly the peak.
  • News "propagation delay" or "News values" dropped exponentially during the first 5-6 days (page views on day 6 is only 7% of page views on day 1)
  • The transition from "hot news" to low interest historical event (where page views are stabilized at an enduring but low level) seemed to occur around day 12. ("The world moved on")
  • After 20 days, the "News values" appears totally gone. The next 20 day period (days 21 to 40) added only 2.5% more cumulative page views. (after 20 days only hard core "information seekers" vs. fleeting "sensation seekers" seem to remain.)
  • Its also likely that the "after 20 days interest/participation" may be coming mostly from heavy repeat users vs. net new users.
  • During the "red hot period" (days 1-6) page views may also be colored by extreme heavy users (news "junkies", professional journalists doing back-grounding, officials back-grounding and applying dilligence, news "intermediaries" and automated services that heavily track breaking news, constant monitoring (page pulls) to report "what just changed" in as near real time as possible, etc. So, observations are cautioned.

Will be interesting to see if editor interest and substantive additions to content here for this article continues, and is lagged behind the "red hot" period as this story is very large. Will incremental, high quality, substantiate, encyclopedic content continue to cumulative here, after the bulk of "the world moved on"?

In the "old world" of print there were three time buckets based on the technology of the day: the daily newspapers(NYT, WSJ, WP....), the weeklies (Time, Newsweek, US World Report) and the monthly's (The Economist, National Geographic, The Atlantic). Insightful news coverage, like wine, tended to improve over time. Even the top investigative journalists at the leading daily newspapers tended to improve "penetration" over time and follow up later with more depth and insight.

Here, social media (in days 1-5) was by far the quickest and scooped up the vast majority of audience interest. That was greatly magnified by professional media -- their internet / web operations units -- quickly grasping social media content, packaging it up, and transmitting it to an eager worldwide audience, with very little "value add" beyond quick packaging and transmission.

However even a modicum of historical context seems missing? Also, where is the journalistic careful note taking, and most importantly, the relentless follow up? Will anything really change in China based on this historic event? Thirty days would be a short period of time to observe that, and provide any level of "depth" reporting on it. I'm not sure cell phone videos and text messages entered with thumbs will do as good a job covering the actual depth parts of the story here, as a good encyclopedia should? Rick (talk) 17:24, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I see your point. Yes, media interest will die down, and interest in the article will also. Geogene (talk) 17:37, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
First 7 day cumulative page views here are 5x what they were for Sinking of Dong Fang Zhi Xing and the decay rate seems to be much slower. For example, in Sinking, at day 7 it was down to 633 page views, Explosions on Day 7 is a robust 14,301 views. There is more "story" or "interest" here and perhaps a much fatter tail as more rich details and analysis unfold. Point is Wikipedia, bird dog researchers, article writers, and editors, don't get fatigued and quit too early here, keep this on your radar for 30 days. China has a good chance to be more transparent here and DEMONSTRATE real human care -- a golden opportunity! Will they cease that opportunity, show real progress and successfully communicate that? Or will it be the same old, same old; just try to cover up, suppress reaction, redirect to what is positive, and hide out wishing the immense attention would go away? Rick (talk) 19:53, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
At this stage, just 7 days in, it is way too early to start talking about changes in "human rights, corruption, and accountability" in China. You're right, this may have long-term consequences, but we should not project our hopes onto a WP:CRYSTALBALL and imply that these changes are coming, as what your (highly partisan) headings are doing. _dk (talk) 02:05, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sock-puppetry on this page[edit]

Wikipedia:Sock puppetry persistent on this page, targeting Chinese media censorship material. Please see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Vantastic2014. editors encouraged to submit reports upon suspicion 495656778774 (talk) 00:42, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion & shaping of content here[edit]

Significant content keeps getting deleted, including the following sections:

4 Media, censorship and propaganda
4.1 Chinese professional media coverage
4.2 Chinese social media coverage
4.3 Chinese censorship and propaganda
4.3.1 Background
4.3.2 Censorship of explosions
4.4 Foreign coverage
5 Human rights, corruption, accountability, and rule of law

Suspect 50 Cent Party attempt to shape the U.S. English Language WikiPedia's content of this event.

The WikiPedia server exists in the USA should not be made subject to Chinese Communist control or undue influence. In the spirit of "freedom of the press" enjoyed by most English speaking countries, would greatly prefer content be ADDED that factually shows Chinese Communist Party responsibility and responsiveness. Rick (talk) 04:49, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please be reminded that Wikipedia is not a battleground for infopolitics, and that unwarranted personal attacks colouring people with legitimate editorial concerns as 50 cent party members are expressly not allowed. If you keep using this kind of rhetoric to support your otherwise unexplained reversions, you may be reported. As for my reversions, I have explained why I think your edits are inappropriate in the edit summaries. For transparency, this is the edit comparing the before and after, and any one can see that no major content have been removed in my version, other than off-topic "background" info about censorship. _dk (talk) 05:02, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Did some middle ground edits hopefully to end this content dispute.495656778774 (talk) 14:34, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd argue that major content has in fact been deleted, censored here if you will, and a major facet of this historic event should be a frank discussion of censorship. Far from being "off topic", factual reporting on the censorship aspects of this event remains essential to high quality and sufficiently complete encyclopedic coverage.

Many, if not the majority, of the English speaking audience for the English WikiPedia (its primary target audience) are not intimately familiar with the long history of censorship in China and how, thanks to technology largely produced in China itself, its undergoing fairly rapid evolution. Given the "explosion" of news here, and legitimate news of changing attitudes towards censorship inside China, there is a legitimate need for reasonable background material on Censorship which is typical and normal for the well established encyclopedia format.

The more recent widespread use of smartphones worldwide makes current censorship attempts in China less and less effective. Chinese citizens, discovering in large numbers that they are not alone in their attitudes, are more and more speaking between themselves and also speaking out. Even the Chinese State media professionals are becoming less tolerant of media suppression, especially where censorship over and over masks blatant violations of even the most basic human rights. Tightly aligned to "upgrading" policies on censorship in China (encouraged by even the senior most Chinese leadership) are the longstanding efforts in China to reduce corruption and increase the rule of law. The intersection of the physical explosion and the need for China to escape from oppressive censorship and corruption are very much part of the 2015 Explosions in Tianjin narrative.

Here are the explanations that were offered why large sections of this article should be censored and large areas redacted, along with a detailed response.

partisanship headings

Headings were actually benign, factual, and based on the large volume of news coverage by respected media on this event to date. If you take all news coverage from respected sources you find the section headings closely match the relative volume of news flow. In a large part, the section headings reflect "the story", as told by respected sources reporting on it. The duty of an encyclopedia is to fairly cover the content in reasonable proportion to its generally accepted importance. The generally accepted standard here is coverage throughout the world, not highly censored information coming form a single State.

no content lost except tangential background info about Chinese censorship, which we can just link to the article itself

The background is more than tangential. This is an encyclopedia and there is no need to be terse or eliminate relevant background. There is no need to have Wikipedia become just Twitter like fleeting bullet points. Background, context and some depth are critical to deeply understanding current events. Ignoring the history invites misinterpreting the magnitude of the current events.

no need to divide into subsections - all of the content is arguably about censorship and propaganda

There is ample content, from numerous high quality sources to provide narrative for each of the sections. And "depth" coverage is just getting started. After 30 days a good volume of "news" will have been broken, particularly "reaction" type news that is extremely relevant. The article will expand and reasonable sectioning is important to maintain organization going forward. Sections as containers are much easier to edit encouraging updating and step-wise refinement.

mitigating partisan sectioning

Mitigating? How is wholesale deletion mitigating? Also, section headings were not "partisan". Are the following section headings "partisan" such that they need to be deleted?

4.1 Chinese professional media coverage
4.2 Chinese social media coverage
4.4 Foreign coverage

Are the following section heads not factual, and thus need to be censored?

4.3 Chinese censorship and propaganda
4.3.1 Background
4.3.2 Censorship of explosions
5 Human rights, corruption, accountability, and rule of law

removed a section wholly tangential to the explosions themselves

Story is not merely about hazardous chemicals becoming wet and the physical combustion alone. Story involves massive loss of life, violation of basic human rights, corruption, and cover up. Rick (talk) 14:58, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hey look. The most likely explanation here is that the article's being vandalized for lulz. The best way to handle it is WP:DENY. Geogene (talk) 18:23, 21 August 2015 (UTC) Clarify: I'm not referring to the current content dispute as "vandalism", I'm talking about what was going on earlier. Geogene (talk) 22:01, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I am deeply disappointed this is how the above wants to interpret my actions. Anyway, are we seeing any change in "Human rights, corruption, accountability, and rule of law" in China that we need a section singling this out? Everything in that section are soundbytes, and as I have argued in the last section, it is way too early to imply the situation about human rights (etc.) are going to improve. Hell, China puts the party above the law, the law serves the party. I object to your rearrangement of the censorship section because it breaks the narrative flow and needlessly divides the content, with the result being we repeatedly saying how everything is censored for three times, then a "background" section about censorship again, and then more about censorship. Keep it in one section._dk (talk) 21:55, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Underbar dk. Significant amount of investigation results have already been released (which I've added to the article), and heads have started to roll, less than ten days after the disaster. The section about censorship, etc. involves an undue amount of speculation, with little real information. Time to trim the fat. -Zanhe (talk) 06:28, 22 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Movements of people to Beijing according to big data[edit]

Interesting source : http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20150822000139&cid=1103&MainCatID=0

El Comandante (talk) 00:50, 23 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sources[edit]

I don't know if these have been used or not in the article or if they're all reliable, but here goes:

Longer-term cleanup and rebuilding[edit]

The article seems to be missing information on the multi-week to multi-month long-term cleanup plan, as well as rebuilding of port facilities that were damaged in the blasts. The short-term "aftermath" is described, as well as the political and journalistic and argument-over-the-facts controversy is covered. But the serious efforts and cleaning up the land, removing and smelting the steel hulks, some debris to landfill, etc., seems to be missing completely.

(The article is also a bit short on exactly which parts of the port facility have become inoperable, what alternatives are being used in the meantime, and what percent of port capacity was lost due to the disaster; but that, at least, fits in one of the existing sections. ... so can be expanded there.)

In short, the article needs a new section stub where this information can be put, and grow to encyclopedically cover the topic in full. N2e (talk) 19:24, 1 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Like all China related articles, my major concern is the double standards in scrutinizing Chinese and Western media sources. While I think reports from Chinese state media should be rightfully examined, Western media like Time and NYT aren't without their own ideological biases, and their claims should also be sourced and qualified.--60.242.159.224 (talk) 15:11, 3 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In my view, that goes without saying. Wikipedia is about verifiability, not some absolute Truth.
But it seems you do not disagree that the article would be improved by covering the cleanup and rebuild aspects of this major industrial disaster. Do you agree? N2e (talk) 15:38, 4 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It would seem that there is no disagreement that the article would be improved with info about the rebuilding of the facilities and the port infrastructure. It just needs to be done.

I understand, of course, that the main sources we might find on that would likely be Chinese media, and hard to say if that operation would present balanced and unbiased reporting. N2e (talk) 20:35, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Tianjin explosion involved the detonation of 800 tonnes of ammonium nitrate[edit]

Huang & Zhang (2015) proposed that the Tianjin explosion explosion, based on crater diameter and a bast damage effects, required the detonation of 800 tonnes of ammonium nitrate. This is far more then the 21 tonnes TNT equivalent registered on seismometers.

If the diameter of the blasting pit was 100 m or the lethality radius was 300 m, it was estimated that about 800 tons of ammonium nitrate needed to be present for an explosion of this magnitude [7,8].

Huang, P., & Zhang, J. (2015). Facts related to August 12, 2015 explosion accident in Tianjin, China. Process Safety Progress, 34(4), 313-314.

--Diamonddavej (talk) 05:57, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Cause tense is indeterminate[edit]

Cause section states "... 800 tonnes of ammonium nitrate and 500 tonnes of potassium nitrate have been discovered at the blast site..." However, the entire section has present tense and past tense. Were the chemicals found during the investigation, prior, after the explosion? Needs cleaning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.181.7.197 (talk) 23:40, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

TNT equivalent numbers[edit]

These don't add up. 10 terajoules is 2.8 kiloton of TNT, not 0.028. So, it's probably also 0.3 kt and 2.1 kt for the first and the second explosions respectively. And it's not tonnes, but ton. Source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeremejevs (talk • contribs) 09:02, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the information listed "28 tonnes of TNT, or 10TJ" is off by a factor of 100. It should be "28 tonnes of TNT, or .10TJ" or "28 tonnes of TNT, or 117GJ" --Protuhj (talk) 17:21, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Not everything in China is about censorship[edit]

Frankly using this article as a WP:COATRACK to complain about state censorship of media in this article is distasteful. As I suggested, an appropriate analogy would be to use any article about a forest fire in the united states as an opportunity to rail about prison-slavery. I would suggest that those people here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS should find articles actually about media censorship in which to bang that particular drum. Simonm223 (talk) 19:04, 7 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It could be WP:UNDUE but I fail to see how it violates WP:COATRACK because it's specifically about censorship relating to the Tianjin explosions. The final decision should be made based on how important the details are to a good understanding of the topic. Good editorial discretion should be exercised and no political bias should occur on either side.Leugen9001 (talk) 19:09, 7 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the thing, China does engage in restrictions on the media very regularly. But we have Censorship in China and Internet censorship in China - both of which exist explicitly to discuss those topics. The story of the 2015 Tianjin explosions is not the story of censorship of the media. It's the story of a terrible industrial accident. As such, talking about how some CNN reporter got kicked out of a hospital, one of the two items I deleted, isn't relevant to the key narrative here. It might be appropriate elsewhere, but it's just part of the normal situation on the ground in China. The sky is high and journalists from the USA sometimes get hassled by cops. That's what I mean when I say it's WP:UNDUE. And when we try to subvert the narrative of every article in China to being one about how China has a different relationship to journalists from North America, that's WP:COATRACK it's taking an article about one thing and making it about something else.Simonm223 (talk) 19:14, 7 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
For reference, the passage in question is this: Press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) accused the Chinese state media of playing up the heroic efforts of rescue workers and firefighters while downplaying the causes of the explosions and the number of casualties. RSF said that censorship by the Chinese authorities showed "a flagrant indifference to the public's legitimate concerns".
A CNN correspondent was interrupted by bystanders and forced to leave during a live report outside TEDA Hospital. A journalist from the Beijing News reported that he and two other reporters were chased by police, caught, searched, and made to delete photographs from their cameras and computers. (If we restore this passage please restore from history rather than the version on talk because the citations have been removed to prevent formatting problems.)
Relating to WP:COATRACK is the fact that your version keeps other paragraphs about censorship of the event, but deletes these paragraphs specifically. Why are those paragraphs not also undue for the same reasons provided? Leugen9001 (talk) 19:22, 7 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Total energy[edit]

The article says that The total energy release was equivalent to 28 tonnes of TNT (without source), but also that the second more powerful explosion involved the detonation of about 800 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, based on crater size and lethality radius (336 tons TNT equivalent [...]). These numbers seem to contradict each other. Renerpho (talk) 22:15, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The lower estimate is derived from the size of the earthquake the explosion generated, only a small portion of the energy of the blast went into the ground. Most of energy was in the fireball and air blast. --Diamonddavej (talk) 01:14, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

TNT Equivalency[edit]

I originally used the TNT Equivalency of 0.42 from TNT equivalent Wikipedia page. However, I found a better estimate in Török & Ozunu (2015) who estimate a TNT Equivalency of 0.2 to 0.32 for Ammonium Nitrate. The TNT equivalency has been revised to between 200 to 256 tonnes. 

 Török, Z. and Ozunu, A. 2015. Hazardous properties of ammonium nitrate and modeling of explosions using TNT equivalency. Environmental Engineering & Management Journal (EEMJ), 14.

--Diamonddavej (talk) 01:57, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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