Text presetation expertise

Dia short introduction

First I’m going to tell something about the case itself. On August 4, 2020, a massive explosion
occurred in the port of Beirut. The explosion caused a huge shock wave to ripple through the city of
Beirut, with devastating consequences. Buildings were destroyed, windows were smashed into
thousands of pieces and there were countless casualties. Unfortunately, the explosion also caused
approximately 220 deaths. The damage was seen across the whole city and was extensive, leaving
thousands of people homeless. The explosion started in Hangar 12 at the port. In the hangar, there
was a lot more than only ammonium nitrate. In total, there was 2750 tons of ammonium nitrate, 50
tons of ammonium phosphate, 1000 car tires, 23 tons of fireworks and 5 tons of coffee and tea
stored. The ammonium nitrate was in the hangar due to mechanical problems of the ship that
transported the ammonium nitrate. Actually, the ammonium nitrate was not mentioned for Beirut,
but for Mozambique, but the ship was defected and the ship had to stop in Bierut.
In this expertise, the consequences of the explosion on nature will be discussed. For example, what is
the effect of the explosion on flora and fauna, climate, vegetation and infrastructure. I will talk about
this in this presentation. Because not all information is already known about the consequences of the
explosion in Beirut, general explosions and the Chernobyl disaster are also used for support and extra
information.

Dia chapter one:

First, the vegetation. In this chapter, I will investigate the consequences of the explosion on the soil.
Because I could not find anything about soil investigation in Beirut, I used an experiment of Daniel
Ambrosini. Daniel examined the effect of shock waves in the ground and their effects above and
below ground. Daniel tested 4 different circumstances. The first one was cratering. During this
circumstance, Daniel used different amounts of TNT to create a crater. The result was that the
amount of TNT effected the size of the crater that is formed. In the second circumstance, 3 landmines
were buried under a different amount of soil. The result was that the depth of the landmine has an
effect on the size of the crater. The third circumstance was about overburden. The results show that
there is an ideal depth for 10 kilos of TNT to form the biggest crater. This depth is 1 meter. The last
circumstance is about a manhole. The results show that an open manhole produces a crater that is
only about 10% smaller than a crater formed after an explosion in which the explosive is covered with
soil.
From the results it can be concluded that the diameter of a crater is almost independent of the soil
type, but the depth of a crater from a real explosion is deeper than the craters created in this
experiment. If I link this to the case, you can see that a crater has been formed, but very different
from a crater formed by explosives. This because the explosives were under the ground and the
explosion in Beirut was above the ground.

Dia chapter two:

In this chapter, the infrastructure will be the subject. The explosion in Beirut caused a lot of damage.
Due to the explosion, 77,000 houses and apartments and at least 8,000 buildings, of which at least
640 are of historical value, were destroyed in the explosion. Also an important building was hit. The
Archaeological Museum of the American University of Beirut. In this museum, there were 74 glasses
from the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods that were destroyed and mixed with glass from the
display and the window. A special team tried to repair the glasses and 15 of them were judged to be
"repairable".
The reconstruction of the city required a lot of money and a lot of building materials. Beirut has
received a lot of building materials and money from donations. Germany also helped a lot rebuilding
the city, but the rebuilding of the city goes very slow, despite all help from other countries. The world
actually has no idea how it is going with the rebuilding of the city. Information is given by people who
really live in Beirut. For example, at night, there is no light in Beirut. The streets are dark because
there are no streetlights or traffic lights. In Beirut people get one hour of electricity provided by the
State per day. At night too, the asphalt shines in certain neighbourhoods of Beirut. The explosion
smashed the windows of the city, reduced them to powder and this glass powder mingled into the
asphalt. Today, there are still houses in Beirut without windows and signs in the street that read
“Beware, falling glass.”

Dia chapter three:

In this chapter, I will describe which consequences the explosion had for especially local shops and
businesses. A year after the explosion took place and destroyed the port and large parts of Beirut,
many small companies faced many challenges, some of which go beyond the immediate effects of the
explosion. For many companies the explosion came as an extra blow, because in Beirut, there was
already an economic and political crises, as well as by the COVID-19 pandemic. What has become
another major problem is that many companies now have debts to suppliers and other related
creditors. the estimated damage to commercial establishments, hotels, housing, educational and
cultural centres in the affected areas located next to the port amounts to roughly about 4.29 billion
euros. According to a 2021 report by the International Labour Organization (ILO), 86 per cent of
business surveyed located within a five-kilometre range of the port area were partially damaged by
the port explosion, while 35 per cent were severely or completely damaged. Only half of the
damaged businesses have been renovated or rebuilt since the explosion, while 14 per cent have not
been repaired at all.
This means the effect of the explosion in Beirut on shops and businesses is huge.

Dia chapter four:

In this chapter, I will talk about the consequences on flora and fauna. This was not so easy, because
the explosion occurred in 2020 and therefor there are no long-term effects known yet. In Beirut,
there is and was not much wildlife, because Beirut is the capital of Lebanon and there are too many
people and less space to live in for wildlife. But of course, there are trees that have been destroyed as
a result of the explosion. And also many pets, like dogs and cats were killed due to the explosion.
But if we take a better look at the effect of ammonium nitrate on animals, we will have to take a look
at an experiment of R.S. Oldham. He investigates the effect of ammonium nitrate in fertiliser on frog
survival. R.S. Oldham used two different methods. It will take to long to explain them, so I will go on
with the results. The results show that when frogs come into direct contact with ammonium nitrate,
acute toxic and fatal effects are caused. For the case of Beirut, it is very difficult to say anything about
the effects of ammonium nitrate on human beings. In fertilizer, the concentration of ammonium
nitrate is very low compared to the concentration of ammonium nitrate that was released during the
explosion. Also, this experiment has been performed on frogs only, so the consequences of toxicity
on frogs is known, but on bigger animals, like horses and bison, there is nothing known about.

Dia chapter five:

In this chapter, I will talk about the effects of the explosion on the climate. By the explosion in the
port of Beirut, there was a mushroom created by the explosion of ammonium nitrate. This is not
radioactive, but the material spread widely. During the explosion there was not only a mushroom, but
it also released a pressure wave. This pressure wave caused a lot of damage.
But to see if there was also damage caused to the climate, several investigations were conducted by
different specialists.
As a result of the investigation, the hazardous materials/chemicals which were found at the port
during and after the explosion were mapped and for the materials/chemicals which were stored in
the area of the explosion, advice has been drawn up to ensure that the materials/chemicals cause as
little damage as possible to the environment and humans.
Dia conclusion:
The conclusion for vegetation is that the explosion in Beirut could cause damage on the soil
and structure of the soil, but there is too little information to give a definitive answer. Research has
been done with TNT, but never with ammonium nitrate and the amount of ammonium nitrate cannot
be used for similar research because the amount that exploded is far too high and poses too much
danger.
The conclusion of infrastructure for Beirut is that there is a lot of damage caused by the
explosion. Many people get homeless and due to the political imbalance and economic crisis, there is
no money to rebuild buildings and historic buildings.
There is a lot of damage as a result of the explosion, economic crisis, political imbalance and
COVID-19 pandemic. Many companies need help and to help all the companies in short-term, the
government need to give support and coaching in all sort of ways. In this way, the companies could
develop again and rebuild their businesses. This can be achieved with the help of monetary
donations. If the government help every company to rebuild the companies, where will be more jobs
and as a result of that, more and more people are above the poverty line.
In Beirut, there is no wildlife, because it is a big city and there is no place for wildlife. In
Chernobyl, similar research has been done, but this disaster released radiation and this causes
completely different damage than the explosion in Beirut. Research has been done into the effects of
ammonium nitrate on frogs, but this experiment has been performed on frogs only, so the
consequences of toxicity on frogs is known, but on bigger animals, like horses and bison, there is
nothing known about. So if you want to investigate the effects of ammonium nitrate, you have to do
an experiment on bigger animals. But if you want to do that, this will be a big issue, because animal
experiments are generally not appreciated.
Finally, the sub-topic of climate. There is of course damage to nature due to the explosion in
Beirut. The experiment that is used concluded that a long-term investigation is necessary to monitor
possible damage from the explosion. But it is too early to say if there is going to be long-term damage
on the climate. Also to say anything about short-term effects, there has to be more research.
An overall conclusion is that there is not that much information about the effects of the explosion in
Beirut on nature and environment.

Dia quality research:

All the information I found was on internet. I searched for scientific articles for my expertise, but
these were difficult to find. There have not been many soil investigations after an explosion and
experiments with the soil in Beirut after the explosion could not be found either. Also information
about the rest of the topics I worked on were mostly no scientific sources. That is the reason why I
cannot say whether all sources are reliable. Of course, any source can contain errors and most of the
sources I have used are not scientific sources. The sources from scientific articles that I have used are
reliable. I have compared each source I have used with other information, so I feel that I have
compared the information well with other sources. I also checked some of the sources I used on the
internet to see if it is a reliable site.

Dia interview:
I conducted two interviews together with Hugo Witjes. The first was with Casper Steenstra and the
second was with Marc Wösten. Casper works as a team leader in Waddinxveen and Marc works at
the forensic investigation in Zoetermeer. The first interview was the most interesting one. This
because Casper knows a lot of the work field and he really likes to give answers to the question. He
knows a lot about explosions itself, but also on the effects of an explosion for nature. Casper said that
he likes to be interviewed with good questions and Hugo an I had good questions. The second
interview was with Marc Wösten. Hugo and I had the feeling that Marc didn’t like the interview,
because he gives very short answers and if a question did not fit in his expertise, he just said: “I don’t
know, I don’t know anything about that.”
But the questions that fits into his expertise, he answered what he know about. Overall I think I learn
a lot about explosions and the effects on nature especially thanks to Casper and Marc was just to get
some extra information.

Dia personal reflection:

Then the personal reflection. If I take a look to my expertise, I think it is well written and there is a lot
of information in the whole expertise. But I think the information is not good enough to make my
expertise an official document regarding the case, because I used a lot of extra information that not
include the explosion of Beirut. It is really hard to find good information about the effects of the
explosion on nature, because it only happened recently and therefore no effects or long-term effects
are known yet.
I enjoyed writing this expertise, because I really like geography and now I could link it to my own
expertise. I also learned a lot about the conditions in Beirut, but I also learned about general
explosions and about Chernobyl. Overall I think I learned a lot.