Beirut Explosion -- Evidence It Wasn't Just A Surface Explosion

Joe Hill

Member
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I call it "The clue everyone missed". That isn't a vapor cloud expanding outward from a surface explosion. It's a vapor cloud blasting straight up, in a separate location from the explosion (I estimate 150ish yards away).
I've been away from this site for a while, and missed discussion of this event. I could not find this oddity covered, so for anyone interested, I explain it in the video below, shown from a different angle.
It's abundantly clear there was an underground component to the explosion, begging the question; what was below the surface?

Source: https://youtu.be/q6UYcdaKzD4?t=132
 
It looks to me like the "white wall" of the vapor cloud moves away from the center of the explosion and expands at a pretty steady rate (based on the video you posed). There are a few frames where for some reason it has a more "straight" shape, but that could be a function of many things, including part of it being occluded by something, or compression artifacts.

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Apologies for the crude graphic assembled in a few seconds in MS paint, but by putting all the frames side by side you can see that the main motion of the white mass is horizontal in addition to vertical (in fact to me it seems to be slightly more horizontal than vertical). This seems consistent to me with it being a sphere shaped pressure wave moving away from the epicenter of the blast, rather than a jet of water or dust shooting upwards.

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The pressure wave eventually forms a shape than can be recognized as a ball surrounding the column of rising black smoke on all sides. Almost all the "volume" of the ball is in the right hand side of this image - that is, the side that the epicenter of the explosion was on. This implies that the volume of the ball is centered on the explosion. If the slightly vertical region that the video points out was the epicenter of a second explosion that somehow produced the ball of vapor, why does the vapor form a ball like this that so neatly surrounds the column of smoke?
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Later in the video the speaker shows the straight region again, but in a totally different location. Is the vertical jet of water and debris moving? If it is, what is it being pushed by? The explosion? Then why is all the other vapor/dust/whatever that it kicked up over near the explosion and not blown away along with it? or is it just the edge of an expanding pressure wave that is being made to look artificially straight for some reason to do with digital artifacting?
 
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I agree the explosion created by the thousands of tons of fertilizer would create a massive shock wave...
2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate -

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It looks to me like the "white wall" of the vapor cloud moves away from the center of the explosion and expands at a pretty steady rate.
It expands as it comes up, actually on both sides, but maintains it's vertical sides, and stays centered over the point of origination. It's not moving away from center of the blast.

There are a few frames where for some reason it has a more "straight" shape, but that could be a function of many things, including part of it being occluded by something, or compression artifacts.
The emergence of this vapor is well left of the grain elevator. There's nothing to occlude it.

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This seems consistent to me with it being a sphere shaped pressure wave moving away from the epicenter of the blast, rather than a jet of water or dust shooting upwards.
It sure doesn't look like it here:
PHOTO 1
beirut_explosion_vaporblast.jpg
Note vapor emanating from blast center takes on a different characteristic:
PHOTO 2
Beirutvapor2.png

beirutvapors.jpg

Line of sight for PHOTO 1 and PHOTO 2
beirutsightlines.jpg

Center of the sight line from the boat (red) was harder to gauge, and is approximate, but I think it's pretty close.
Note what we find at the sight line intersection:
beirutcrater.jpg
 
It may not look like a perfect sphere in certain still images, but when you watch a complete sequence of stills frame by frame you can see that the "straight up edge" is the edge of a sphere expanding outwards and getting bigger which eventually encompasses the entire blast site. The center of the sphere is not the point you indicate, but the center of the main explosion. The sphere does not appear to be a perfect sphere. It looks a bit flattened and there are places where it has "holes" (presumably due to variable atmospheric conditions?), as well as an uneven "surface". It seems to have more "holes" on its right hand side, perhaps giving the illusion that it is has its center more to the left, but when you see it from a far enough distance you can see it indeed forms a circle completely around the column of smoke in the middle of the main blast.

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In this still from a video hosted by The Guardian you can see the "holes" more clearly and how while the holes seem to be more prominent on the right side, the complete shape is still visible even in fragmentary form.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93tV6-0Ugwk
(source video)

I believe the effect you are pointing out is an artifact of this feature of the pressure wave, namely that is has "holes" more in the right side than in the left side, so we see it "poke" out of the left side of the explosion more dramatically than the right. We can observe it emerge on the right side, however.

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In this series of stills we can not only see what you interpret as a secondary explosion emerging on the left hand side, but we can also see its counterpart on the right emerging an equal distance away from the epicenter of the main blast, just less distinctly because of the aforementioned "holes". Would you interpret this as evidence of a third blast? Note that in the final image the edges of the right hand side appear almost straight near the ground.

Edit: In fact, in this still we can see an even more dramatic example of it having an "uneven" surface. There are right angles and vertical sides to both the right and the left, the right appears to have risen higher than the left (where the secondary explosion supposedly happened) and the middle is stretching higher into the sky than either, with straight edges separating it from the sides. Overall, the shape is a sphere, but one that is very bumpy. Reading too much into the bumps might lead to the wrong conclusions.

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It's abundantly clear there was an underground component to the explosion, begging the question; what was below the surface?

Source: https://youtu.be/q6UYcdaKzD4?t=132


That interpretation is definitely NOT abundantly clear to me.

I'm trying to expand (pun) on Akton's interpretation.

The white ball of shock wave/reaction products is centered on approximately where the storage facility was. The video he's using was not particularly steady or aimed at a single spot, it moves around a bit, but if you start at the end of the video and estimate the center of the sphere (yeah, it's not a sphere, but close enough here), that estimated center stays pretty constant all the way back.
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The orange is mostly gaseous nitrogen compounds, which are secondary products, but the primary product of the rapid decomposition of ammonium nitrate is water. The white ball/shock wave is carrying colorless reaction products like water.

According to Wikipedia,
Solid ammonium nitrate decomposes on heating. At temperatures below around 300 °C, the decomposition mainly produces nitrous oxide and water:

NH4NO3 → N2O + 2H2O
At higher temperatures, the following reaction predominates.[8]

2NH4NO3 → 2N2 + O2 + 4H2O
Both decomposition reactions are exothermic and their products are gas. Under certain conditions, this can lead to a runaway reaction, with the decomposition process becoming explosive.[9] See § disasters for details. Many ammonium nitrate disasters, with loss of lives, have occurred.

The red–orange colour in an explosion cloud is due to nitrogen dioxide, a secondary reaction product.[9]

I don't know what the shape of the overall charge was, but I'd assume it had a rectangular foot, and perhaps varying height depending on how high the bags were piled, and how regular the distribution was. I don't know where in the mass the reaction was initiated, but it's going to start an expanding pressure wave that might scatter some/a lot of the ammonium nitrate. The charge is effectively tamped by the rock/water/earth beneath, and the storage facility isn't very stout, so I'd expect a some early colorful products but mostly a huge gas-driven steam ball. I'm impressed that the blast is as symmetric as it appears to be.

What are claimed as "even" sides (especially on the right side) is more likely to be the white ball overtaking and blocking the visibility of the orange stuff.

Let's look at the harbor environment and guess how it was constructed. At least on Google Earth, the dock where the ships are berthed and the storage building was looks pretty much like reclaimed land. Heck, nearly 4-1/2 km of wharf-front looks reclaimed, and the harbor itself is probably pretty shallow. So, let's assume that under that pier/building is a lot of rock, piles, and maybe earth as well.
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If there was a blast coming "straight up" from underneath, there'd be a lot of rock, mud, fish, etc., thrown up into the air as well. I don't see any hint that the expanding white cloud has much, if any, of that. The guy also claims that an underwater crater was formed, and his cursor is pointing to the presumed location in this next image.
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So are we to assume that anything in this picture that's that dark shade is a deep hole? What about that long strip next to the harborfront at the right? Is he asserting that there's actually a subsurface U-shaped tube there with one end of the tube where the storage building was and the other out about 300 m in the middle of the harbor? There'd be a heck of a lot of debris going along for that ride through the tunnel, not to mention the stupendous amount of water that had to be evacuated from that tunnel. .

From an NBC news site, the following photo appears to be the same one he's using for the crater argument.
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So, if this blast came straight up out of the water, after passing through a natural cavern or tunnel, why are those two derelict ships barely moved even they're right over the crater? The blast was powerful enough to knock over the white ship top left, but somehow that humongous explosion didn't do more than jostle those two ships a bit?

Meh.

Cheers - Jon N7UV
 
why are those two derelict ships barely moved even they're right over the crater? The blast was powerful enough to knock over the white ship top left, but somehow that humongous explosion didn't do more than jostle those two ships a bit?
The real answer, of course, is that the blast was from the giant hole in the ground and not the dark patch below them.

Boats in general (especially long ones but if you've even ridden a jet ski you've probably experiences this) are more stable against lengthwise waves than crosswise ones. Those two are pointing almost straight at the blast, while the capsized one was broadside to it.

They can still cause damage from high-centering on a large wave or bridging between two with no support under the center, but compared to what it takes to capsize a long and narrow ship with a broadside wave, taking one head on is preferable.


Edit: now, on the vapor sphere of the shockwave, that isn't water produced in the explosion (though it is correct that NH₄NO₃ is going to produce quite a bit), but already present in the atmosphere.

It's called a Wilson Cloud, and wikipedia has a better explanation than I can offer:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condensation_cloud
 
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Can't tell if you're pulling my leg or just trolling %^)

The original author of this thread made a claim that there was a underground (or underwater) explosion that pushed stuff straight up. The same author claimed that the dark circular spot immediately NE of the two ships was the evidence for the outlet for some sort of maniacally directed charge from (I think) the main charge at the storage facility, facilitated by some kind of tunnel or cavern under the sea.

That's bollocks.

If those ships were atop a hole from which an explosion erupted, this explosion as the poster claimed, they'd be somewhere else right now, folded in half... Never mind jet skis.

If you're claiming that the ships were just jostled due to the obvious blast from the storage facility, then I retract the "troll" comment %^) Have no issues with that, since it's in agreement with my assertion. Look at the apparent damage on deck of those two ships - the stern-end decks are looking mildly dirty or scorched, compared to the rest of the decks. And here, that dark spot is pretty much directly under the ships, but I think that's more now that the harbor water there is in the ship's lees, so the darker area is currently due to the lack of wind (out of the SW) at the surface.

Check out the brand new image on Google Earth - it was updated as of 04 August - that's amazingly fast, but very cool and for such an obviously notable event. And the older shot is from a slightly different azimuth, but only two months older.

AFTER:
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Then "push the button, Max"
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BEFORE:
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Where the storage structure was you can see beach below, it certainly isn't very deep there. Sure, you could claim that the sand all slid into the former opening to the secret passage, but that's for a later post.

The devastation was extreme in the x-y (horizontal) direction. Nearly a circle half a km in all directions (except where that concrete"silo" structure was an effective block). Yet, notice that a "block" back from the shoreline there are low containers and things more or less still standing, though some of them are definitely crescent-shaped now... The propagation of the shock wave right along the surface is impeded greatly by obstacles, and quickly devolves into turbulent flow, reducing its force and speed. In fact, while it's not subject to some debate, if you measure the height vs width of the vapor/shock cloud in my last post, the horizontal radius is about 10-15% less than the vertical, suggesting the above.

Now, on to something completely different:

Note the storage structure is about as long as the silo to the WSW. And again, I have no information on how the ammonium nitrate was distributed throughout the facility, but that building was about 130 m x 40 m, or 5200 sq m in area. The material is about 1.7x the density of water, but since it's packed in bags, and not all that evenly, maybe 1.3x average? Why not. So ~2750 tonnes (thanks, @Keith Beachy, I'll assume you're thinking metric) means about 2100 cu m, doesn't even fill the building to 1/2 m deep. And since we saw a picture of it stacked up at least as high as the ex-people playing with fireworks right in front of the pile, it may have been concentrated into a pile 2 m high by 1050 sq m in footprint. If rectangular, more or less in the ratio of the building, the charge would have roughly been 35 m x 10 m x 2 m in size. Of course, this is a WAG, and I have no idea the real shape of the material. But, compared to the building this is more like a point charge, so very quickly the propagating wave would look more or less circular on the ground, with divots carved out where there were sturdy obstacles. Vertically, it'd be quite uniform.

The wave propagated toward the silo building, gouging out the center (but interestingly, not penetrating through), it appears like a fairly uniform diffraction around the N/S ends of the silo, as the destruction to the west of the silo is fairly uniform as well. (Except for that one little structure square west of the silo, right at the center!)

I don't know the height of the dock area vs the water at that time of day, but those two ships being in close and the shock not coupling well to the water right at the dockline would cause a lot of the shock wave to potentially pass over much of the ships' decks, and not get down onto the hulls, with way more cross-section. Ground clutter really makes a difference to a surface explosion.

Ok, enough armchair analysis. Time to get a life!

Cheers - Jon N7UV
 
Edit: now, on the vapor sphere of the shockwave, that isn't water produced in the explosion (though it is correct that NH₄NO₃ is going to produce quite a bit), but already present in the atmosphere.

It's called a Wilson Cloud, and wikipedia has a better explanation than I can offer:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condensation_cloud

And, as far as Wilson clouds, go to the page you linked and check out the photo of the explosion of 300 tons of TNT. The Wilson cloud is quite attenuated, and not nearly as spectacular as Beirut. As well, Beruit is actually pretty low humidity in general, but that's beside the point. From the Wikipedia entry for TNT,
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What you'll likely notice is that water is not a primary decomposition product of TNT. Water is the primary decomp product of ammonium nitrate. So there. %^) (And of course, TNT is a high explosive, so the shock wave rapidly outpaces the carboniferous part of the explosion, as seen in the same photo...)

Cheers - Jon N7UV
 
And darn it, I got stuck trying to remember an important descriptive word for explosives - it had lain dormant in my head for years. Was able to conjure up "frissance", looked it up, found I actually was remembering "frisson", a shiver (French), but finally found that long lost word, "brisance", another French word that means the shattering quality of a high explosive. Man, the things I relearn.

Cheers - Jon N7UV
 
Beruit is actually pretty low humidity in general?
.... 74% humidity at Beruit is not low. Beruit's humidity for a day or so
69%62%64%76%83%85%60%
Low is below 30%.
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1200 tons of TNT (equivalent to the nearly 3,000 tons of fertilizer) blast is bigger than 300 tons of TNT, and would have a supersonic shock-wave travelling in the air producing the white spherical cloud, as seen.

It would be interesting to study what frame rate is required to give higher fidelity to video to capture the supersonic shock wave and explosion.
 
Thanks for this Keith - My bad, I must have checked during a certain time of day, and made a bad assumption.

Cheers - Jon N7UV
 
Thanks for all your replies, and no, I'm not trying to pull anyone's leg. I will admit to being over eager with my post, but, after further study, I'm sticking with my basic premise; the vapor column in question was not formed by the above ground shock wave, but was formed before the shock wave hit it.
My specialty is visual evidence. That's what I can contribute to the conversation, and below are two versions of visual proof; a short version which focuses on the essence, and a longer version which shows how I located the vapor origination and measured the shock wave.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TzJbRQByQ0


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrZiaIkZAic&t=2s
Edit: I forgot to include in video the dome shape does not move from frame 11 to 12. If you look at the next frame in the video, Frame 13, it doesn't move at it's base there either:
bvstartcomparison2.png
And here is a frame by frame graphic. I label the frame with the first flash as Frame 1...
blastvaporcomposite.png
blastvaporcomposite2.png
Frame 13 edit: above ground shock wave.
 
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In your own examples the vapor cloud is moving horizontally. Compare frame 16 to frame 11, or 14 to 16, or 12 to 13. Your explanation for this seems to be that the second explosion created a jet shooting horizontally up that just happened to be molded by the main shockwave into a ball around the epicenter of the explosion. Why should this explanation be favored over the more parsimonious one that it is simply an early manifestation of the pressure wave that in the earlier frames of the video takes a slightly unusual shape? Your reason seems to be because the very tiny blurry images of the early cloud take on certain shapes in individual frames. If you isolate any two frames from a longer video (especially one that was taken from a distance at a low resolution) you can point out individual things that might seem strange, or objects that might not seem to be moving (again, it is not unusual that something that is moving might not appear to move across two single frames). If you want to understand what something in a video like this is, it helps to see it in context, and the context clearly shows that the white vapor that we see at the early moments of the explosion expands out to form a ball of vapor by the end. It is formed by the explosion's shockwave following well understood physical principles.

As I point out in my post #5 we can see a similar vertical column of white vapor form over land near the right hand side of the explosion. Across a few frames it appears to grow taller vertically much more than it moves horizontally. Is this evidence of a third explosion? No, because if you watch the video it is obvious that this is a cloud of vapor created by the moving shockwave.

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The ball does not expand in a perfectly uniform way. At certain times it seems to move more vertically than horizontally and sometimes the opposite way. It has these large aforementioned "holes" that may make it seem like it is not centered around the main explosion. Any one of these facts when looked at in isolation through a few individual frames might be enough to produce an effect that seems anomalous, but when we look at the gestalt of it all together, we can obviously see what is happening.

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I call this the gestalt view. When we see all the parts together, we can see well what each thing is. At first, we just see some white stuff on the left. then we see the whole site engulfed in a sphere of white stuff, with some patches and empty spots. The area covered by the white stuff is bigger. Then finally we see the entire area around the site completely covered in white stuff. The complete image one gets is of an expanding sphere of white stuff that becomes more and more "full" or less "patchy" over time. This is consistent with a shockwave condensing the moisture in the air to create vapor.

Edit: You also seem to infer an extremely large amount from small irregularities in the shape of parts of the cloud at different moments. I will again post this still here:

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Because I think this still very clearly shows that the vapor cloud can have all sorts of weird irregularities to its edges that may not track the exact shape of the shockwave that creates it. The vapor cloud is not the shockwave. It is caused by the shockwave interacting with the particular features of the atmosphere at different points. The exact shape and location of the shockwave can only be deduced from the vapor cloud with a limited degree of accuracy, unless one were to believe that the shockwave had a lot of jagged right angles from this picture.
 
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Would the big, sturdy, (grain elevator?) between us and the explosion cast some interesting "shadows," and throw some echoes, in terms of the shock wave? And would that be expected to to cause variations in the spherical shape of the shockwave and/or the vapor dome?
 
Would the big, sturdy, (grain elevator?) between us and the explosion cast some interesting "shadows," and throw some echoes, in terms of the shock wave? And would that be expected to to cause variations in the spherical shape of the shockwave and/or the vapor dome?

I don't believe that anything is distorting the shape of the shockwave because in the final stages of the explosion it forms a more or less perfect sphere. That is to say, when it has theoretically been bounced around the most it has the most perfect shape. I think instead that some sort of variations in the exact composition and pressure of the atmosphere produces the variations we see, but that's speculation. The point is that the sphere (especially in its earliest stages) is extremely patchy. In fact, I do not believe the tiny "dome" that OP is referring to as a dome over the surface of a second explosion is a "dome" at all, whether over the first or a second underwater explosion. I think it's just a rounded "chunk" of the sphere that formed first before the other sides of the sphere did.
 
Your explanation for this seems to be that the second explosion...
I do not believe the tiny "dome" that OP is referring to as a dome over the surface of a second explosion...
I've never suggested a "second explosion". I'm merely showing the vapor column in question originated outside the perimeter of the shock wave. How that occurred would be speculation. I'm showing that it did occur.

...an early manifestation of the pressure wave that in the earlier frames of the video takes a slightly unusual shape?
The shock wave has a round shape at it's start and maintains that shape, growing in an ever expanding circle. It would not have a nodule projecting 20-30 meters out from it's edge.
If the vapor column in question were some anomaly shape protruding, it would not be caught by some other part of the wave behind it.
This video better explains what shapes we are looking at in the frames:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWE4zTLRKk8

Graphics from the video:
bvstartcomparison2.png
bvf12-13compare.png

...we can see a similar vertical column of white vapor form over land near the right hand side of the explosion.
Similar in shape only, and yes...
...it is obvious that this is a cloud of vapor created by the moving shockwave.
1598574744914.png
Most important, it is moving to the right. The vapor column in question does not.
Also note altitude of vapor development. Height is relatively the same, except the column on the left, making this an aberration:
beirut_explosion_16.jpg

Would the big, sturdy, (grain elevator?) between us and the explosion cast some interesting "shadows," and throw some echoes, in terms of the shock wave? And would that be expected to to cause variations in the spherical shape of the shockwave and/or the vapor dome?
My understanding is the shock wave doesn't bounce off buildings, but goes through them, and actually speeds up when going through anything denser than air (ground shock wave travels faster than when in the atmosphere).
 
Most important, it is moving to the right. The vapor column in question does not.
I will concede that it moves right, though I would say it moves up more than it moves right, and your column moves horizontally as well by a very large amount, as many pictures and videos have shown (just not in certain individual frames you focus on). In any case I think I have found a better example of the point I'm trying to make here. This is another collection of stills from the guardian video:
1598655751193.png
In a few frames we can see a white puff appear out of nowhere and grow in size around its center point for a few frames before it expands enough to connect with the main sphere and starts moving clearly to the right. It may move a little to the right (especially in the final frame), but its overall motion is almost entirely out from a point, and between certain frames it appears to not move at all (from its center). Is this evidence of a mysterious mid air explosion? No, it is evidence that the vapor cloud is highly irregular in shape and firm facts about the underlying shockwave or the relationship of the cloud to the shockwave cannot be ascertained from it.

This little puff clearly shows that the dynamics of the cloud's expansion and movement can only approximately indicate to us what is going on with the shockwave. Large "chunks" of cloud can form independent from the main mass of the cloud and stay relatively stationary for frames at a time, though it becomes clear what is going on with them when we look at the whole explosion in its completeness. Arguments that claim such and such behavior of the cloud is clearly incompatible with the movement of the shockwave and therefore the cloud and the shockwave cannot be related are therefore not convincing.
 
i think a uniformed and consistent detonation is wrongly assumed, as if the source explosive was in one heap & triggered as such and not a mixed up pile of differing amounts and the prime detonation was who knows where but unlikely center mass. This was a large spread out pile of poorly maintained dock yard fertilizer and suspected other forms of combustibles & not military grade HE controlled demo.
 
My understanding is the shock wave doesn't bounce off buildings, but goes through them, and actually speeds up when going through anything denser than air (ground shock wave travels faster than when in the atmosphere).

Your understanding is wrong. The behaviour of an explosive pressure wave will be changed by the shape and density of the things around it. Blast over pressure can be reflected and focused by flat/hard surfaces such as buildings, rock walls etc. (these secondary effects are actually taken into consideration in some building designs to harden targets against acts of terrorism).

Would the big, sturdy, (grain elevator?) between us and the explosion cast some interesting "shadows," and throw some echoes, in terms of the shock wave? And would that be expected to to cause variations in the spherical shape of the shockwave and/or the vapor dome?

This is another secondary blast effect/phenomena referred to as shielding (similar to 'creating a shadow') where a solid object in front of a pressure wave will actually provide some protection to objects immediately behind it. So it would be a reasonable assumption that this contributes to the slightly irregular shape of the visible pressure front.
 
The emergence of this vapor is well left of the grain elevator. There's nothing to occlude it.

This might be a sympathetic detonation of a separate amount of AN, or another chemical stored nearby? It's a dockyard which is clearly used for storing large amounts in whatever haphazard way. AN is insensitive until it's 'pushed' with a decent shock or substantially heated. If there was an explosion of another chemical, or perhaps this part of the store exploded first, it may have given enough shock to kick off the rest of the stored AN.

It still doesn't point to being an underground charge, only that the shockwave propagates from around ground level as it would if a large amount of explosive was detonated there...

I think it's been said already above (sorry for being lazy...it's late here) but if it was an underground charge there'd be a heap of dirt/dust and whatever else thrown into the mix.
 
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