Why was the explosion so massive? "The plant uses ammonium nitrate in fertilizer production, the same chemical used in 1995's Oklahoma City Bombing," says Siobhan Morris at Newstalk 1010.

The lawn and garden fertilizer plant is home to more than 300 tons of ammonium nitrate, and officials feared a potential explosion. According to local media, the fire started Monday night.

The ammonium nitrate had reportedly been unloaded from a ship impounded at the port in 2013, and then stored in a warehouse there. The explosion comes at a sensitive time for Lebanon, with an ...

A Lebanese security source has said the initial blaze that sparked the explosion was caused by welding work. It started in warehouse 9 and then spread to warehouse 12, where the ammonium nitrate ...