https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...rate_disasters
Ammonium nitrate is extremely dangerous under proper circumstances.
Texas City disaster and West Texas are two US disasters over time.
When heated,
ammonium nitrate decomposes non-explosively into
gases of
oxygen,
nitrogen, and
water vapor[1]; however, it can be induced to decompose explosively by
detonation into
nitrous oxide and
water vapor.
[2] Nitrogen dioxide causes the orange-red colour in explosions.
[3] Large stockpiles of the material can be a major
fire risk due to their supporting
oxidation, and may also detonate, as happened in the
Texas City disaster of 1947 which led to major changes in the regulations for storage and handling.
There are two major classes of incidents resulting in explosions:
- In the first case, the explosion happens by the mechanism of shock to detonation transition. The initiation happens by an explosive charge going off in the mass, by the detonation of a shell thrown into the mass, or by detonation of an explosive mixture in contact with the mass. The examples are Kriewald, Morgan, Oppau, Tessenderlo, and Traskwood.
- In the second case, the explosion results from a fire that spreads into the ammonium nitrate (AN) itself (Texas City, Brest, Tianjin, Beirut), or to a mixture of an ammonium nitrate with a combustible material during the fire. The fire must be confined at least to a degree for successful transition from a fire to an explosion (a phenomenon known as "deflagration to detonation transition", or DDT). Pure, compact AN is stable and very difficult to initiate. However, there are numerous cases when even impure AN did not explode in a fire.
Trump is likely speaking from the hip, There is not yet a confirmed cause from lebanon - and given the instability, political murkiness , hezbollah, muslim politics, I doubt a thorough investigation will ever be completed or published.
I think it likely what happened will remain unknown, or be covered up.