A very large amount of explosives, impounded from a ship and confiscated years before, stored unsafely at a Mediterranean port, spontaneously explodes in a ~3 kiloton explosion causing massive damage, loss of life and economic disaster.
If you think you might have heard that exact story before, you have!
In 2011, exactly the same thing happened on the island of Cyprus, which is literally next door to Lebanon, only 250km away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelos_Florakis_Naval_Base_explosion
It is quite extraordinary that security forces in Lebanon made exactly the same mistake.
You'd think that every country would review their procedures for storing large amounts of confiscated explosives after what happened in Cyprus.
But no, they ignored the obvious risk, despite the fact that the Cyprus explosion would have been heard in Lebanon - this similar size explosion in Lebanon yesterday was heard in Cyprus.
This proves once again that many governments and security forces are criminally incompetent and harm their citizens more than they protects them.
I don't believe that the astonishing symmetry of this explosion and its obviously high damage yield could come from a big pile of badly stored, old, fertiliser without any other fuel.
My favourite theory at this point is that the old ammonium nitrate based pile was being actively converted into either explosives or rocket fuel.
looks actually pretty similar to this explosion last year in Russia/Siberia
Yes, but sane people keep their explosives well away from densely populated areas.
They only keep them away from people they care about.
That should be everybody :(