Ten killed and 200 injured in Jordan toxic gas explosion
Footage on state TV shows cylinder plunging from crane on a moored ship at Aqaba, causing a violent release of a yellow gas
….
He called on residents of Aqaba to “stay in their homes and shut all windows as a precaution”, saying the chemical substance was very dangerous but not specifying what it was.
Be interesting to know. Industrial or arms?
Isn’t Chlorine yellow…?
I’m surprised they couldn’t/didn’t identify it immediately…
Ch is yellow/green I think? From the piccie this is bright – mustard – yellow. Which leads to a slightly different thought….
Seemed a strange sort of “tanker” didn’t it? Tankers usually have…well…tanks. Where you pump the cargo aboard.
Concentrated Chemtrail gas was on its way to an airport near you !
The headline on the Telegraph article linked to says chlorine.
Tanker as in road tanker. Lifts on and off the truck. Like a shipping container for gases. Very common so nothing suspicious in that of itself but gaseous chlorine is pretty evil stuff, as evidenced. You’d only transport it in that form if you absolutely needed the gas and not a less volatile derivative. Plenty of industrial uses, of course, but Syria has a history of using it as a weapon…
From the colour of the gas cloud, looks like bromine (same family as chlorine, but a bit less vehement).
Lots of civilian uses, but a nasty Toxic Industrial Chemical that does make a usable improvised chemical weapon – after all, plain chlorine was one of the first CWs used back in 1915 and has been lobbed about a bit in Syria.
Most likely? Shipping container with a tank of bromine inside fell when badly rigged or a cable snapped; tank ruptures and a ton or so of bromine leaks out. It’s heavier than air, hence the ground-hugging yellow, and it’s nasty stuff for anyone breathing more than a couple of parts-per-million of it so in a busy working port, quite a few people get trapped in the cloud: can’t see or breathe (because it’s attacking mucous membranes, like eyes and lungs) so can’t get out and without the right PPE nobody’s getting in to save you.
If it was “mustard gas” we’d be hearing about the awful blistering and life-changing injuries, plus that dock would be contaminated for the foreseeable future – not hideable – while bromine or chlorine would just disperse without any persistent effect. (Mustard gas got its name because it smells of mustard plants – though who found that out, and what happened to them, I probably don’t want to know)
I thought bromine would be a redder/browner colour?
I once filled a fume cupboard with bromine vapour (making eosin, IIRC) and it certainlu wasnt yellow.
Chlorine may have a bad side (thanks Mr.H), but remember that it’s used by the ton for water treatment, and chlorinated water has been the biggest improvement in health since….um….sliced bread?
Prior to that, you treated water with alcohol (small beer) and the middle ages makes a lot more sense when you realise they were all pissed out of their skulls on 8 pints/day of small beer, ‘cos the water weasn’t safe.
Yeah Tim. Made some bromine in the chem lab at school (Without the inconvenience of fume cabinets. Boy there was a fuss!) Definitely brownish.
But with the colour. That’ll be a surveillance camera. Likely getting on a bit. Those sort of cameras do all sorts of things to colours. They’re made for cheapness not to produce home cinema material. One I have seems very fond of red. No doubt because it’s biased to the longer wavelengths for low light capability. So that throttles down greens & blues.
Bromine is red brown, it is a liquid at room temperature. It will produce lots of red-brown fumes when you open a bottle. I have handled over a litre of Bromine at one stage…
Chlorine is a light green/yellow gas… both are nasty. Have never made a large amount of Chlorine, but that cloud could be Chlorine, it is far too yellow for Bromine.
Have watched a video of the incident and the chemical code on the broken tank was UN1017, so Chlorine…
@Ottokring, June 28, 2022 at 7:36 am
This is something I’m looking into. Do you have any good citations or sources?
Thanks
Chlorine is a terrible poison gas. For a start it isn’t really poisonous, just caustic. It pools, is easy to see, is hard to deliver by shell (as you need lots of it), doesn’t work in rain or fog, is easy to counter with wet cloths or sprays.
It would never be used by a nation state. It wasn’t used even in WWI once anything better was available.
Gas is useful to terrorise civilians, but it isn’t worth it against soldiers. Too much hassle for not enough damage. That’s why no-one uses it.
The alleged attacks in Syria are almost certainly false flag operations by Islamic militants. I say that as a person who is solidly, reliably anti-Putin. But they’d never use anything half so unsophisticated.
@CD
Dan Kaszeta is interesting to follow/read re chemical weapons in Syria and elsewhere. Broadly his thoughts are
– some use of CWs by rebel groups (islamists like you say), but relatively small scale,
– larger scale use of CWs by Assad’s forces, through their indigenous program (largely wound down now),
– no sign Russian forces have dirtied their hands by either providing or using CWs in Syria.
Kaszeta is not sympathetic to Moscow and points out Russia has ongoing CWs activity including their use in assassinations abroad, but hasn’t seen any evidence of Russia using them in either the Syrian or Ukrainian conflicts. Otoh Russia does support Assad militarily in other ways and tries to shield Assad from credible accusations of CW use.