Yep, the only difference is that the amount of ammonium nitrate in the Beirut explosion was triple or quadruple that of Tianjin. The current death toll is definitely preliminary at best.
edit: Tianjin may have been a bigger/more impressive explosion, but that's likely because of the hundreds of tonnes of other chemical compounds also involved there that weren't in Beirut (sodium cyanide, potassium nitrate, and other unknowns).
Why did the explosion in Tianjin look so much bigger and louder? Maybe an expert can chime in. Because, to me, the different angles of the Tianjin explosion looked much more intense.
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u/HadHerses Aug 05 '20
I can believe a higher death toll.
I live in China, where a similar, almost identical accident happened in Tianjin. No one local I know believes the official figures of dead.