Social media users inlay Beirut blast radius over their cities to contextualise the disaster
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The trend has seen participation from people from Los Angeles, Hong Kong, London, Prague, Chicago, Cork, Kathmandu, and many others.
The massive explosion in Beirut killed over 150 people and injured 5,000 others on Tuesday. It also caused an estimated $3 billion in damage and leaving 300,000 people homeless in an instant.
The loss is unprecedented as it is huge. To this end, social media users have taken to educate their fellow countrymen about the extent of the damage caused by Tuesday’s ammonium nitrate explosion in Beirut.
They have started a new viral trend -- exploring how major cities in their countries would be affected if they were rocked by a blast of similar magnitude.
The trend has seen participation from people from Los Angeles, Hong Kong, London, Prague, Chicago, Cork, Kathmandu, and many others.
These users contextualised the scale of the disaster, and also raised money for disaster relief.
1/x This morning I woke up to see viral maps incorrectly comparing the damage area of the Beirut explosion to London and New York. I have corrected the maps with a little thread to explain my corrections. img 1. tweet with my notes. img 2-4. my new maps. pic.twitter.com/nz9Q1X0wLt
— Joanna Merson (@JoannaMerson) August 5, 2020
Terrifying map reveals what the Beirut explosion would've looked like if the closest Ammonium Nitrate depot in Toronto exploded #Toronto #torontorealestate #BeirutBlast pic.twitter.com/2qHVcDxETn
— Steve (@gabberghoul) August 7, 2020
Okay though, seriously, here's what it would look like if a ship full were unloaded in the Portlands pic.twitter.com/kZyzGsiP4V
— Steve (@gabberghoul) August 7, 2020
Comparable - Halifax to Beirut explosions via maps pic.twitter.com/r2NCwpa15I
— 🇨🇦🍁Cheryl🍁🇨🇦CANADA🍁🇨🇦 (@mini_bubbly) August 5, 2020
Beirut blast was so intense that Cyprus felt its tremor 240 km away. To understand the force, I tried translating the impact on Nepal's map. If Narayanhiti (KTM) were the center, the tremor would be felt in six-eight districts surrounding Kathmandu. That's a massive area. pic.twitter.com/iPpFpGFJR0
— Bikash Gupta (@iambikashgupta) August 7, 2020
The comparison between what happened in #Beirut with a similar explosion in New York City or London is brutal & sobering #BeirutExplosion #Lebanon pic.twitter.com/x3NczLRNLY
— John Cope (@john_cope) August 5, 2020
With thanks to @JoannaMerson, more accurate (but just as horrifying) maps are now available: pic.twitter.com/YRuXoIHeof
— John Cope (@john_cope) August 6, 2020
The Beirut blast was so powerful that it was felt as far away as northern Israel and Cyprus (240 km away), and measured as a 4.5 local magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale by the Seismological Observatory in Jordan.
Observers estimate that the blast had an explosive yield of between 200 and 500 hundred tonnes of TNT.