West TX.

This is coolbert:

Ammonium nitrate explosion! Catastrophe!

Large portions of the city of West, Texas, USA leveled by the spontaneous and accidental [?] detonation of an ammonium nitrate factory, the product of which is a fertilizer having a rather explosive potential.

I am sure the experts are most concerned about the possibility of sabotage here? At least I would hope so. Even there existing a connection to terrorism?

Thanks to the English Telegraph:

"Texas explosion: firefighters missing after huge blast"

"Rescue workers are searching the wreckage of a fertilizer plant for survivors of a huge explosion likened to a nuclear bomb that killed as many as 15 people.

That "explosion" and "huge blast" having the force of a tactical nuclear weapon!!

As to the aspect of terrorism and sabotage consider:

"The explosion came two days before the 20th anniversary of a fire in nearby Waco that engulfed a compound inhabited by David Koresh and his followers in the Branch Davidian sect, ending a siege by federal agents. About 82 members of the sect and four federal agents died at Waco."

Explosions of fertilizer factories and cargoes of same as carried by merchant vessels not normal but no so uncommon as one might think. In ALL case the results always catastrophic in the extreme.

And in the modern era the sabotage and detonation of such facilities as an act of terrorism CANNOT BE RULED OUT!!

To my knowledge the  last time one of these plants manufacturing ammonium nitrate fertilizer blew sky-high was in 2001, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The French AZF plant again spontaneously and accidentally destroyed by a cataclysmic detonation the origins of which were NEVER conclusively established, an ACT OF TERRORISM HOWEVER NOT BEING RULED OUT!

"AZF . . . was the name of a chemical factory in Toulouse, France, which exploded on 21 September 2001."

"The disaster caused 29 deaths (28 from the factory, 1 secondary school pupil from a neighbouring school), 2,500 seriously wounded, and 8,000 light casualties . . . 70 eye wounds and several thousand wounds which had to be sutured."

Hassan Jandoubi the suspected culprit dressed in a manner [as determined post-mortem] indicative of an "Islamic militants going into battle or on [a] suicide mission". NO GUILT ever fully established!!

"Media interest was further aroused by the results of his [Jandoubi] autopsy, which was carried out by a doctor who had worked in the Middle East for the international aid organisation Médecins du Monde. The medical examiner noted that Jandoubi was wearing two pairs of trousers and four pairs of underpants, which reminded her 'of the apparel worn by some Islamic militants going into battle or on suicide missions'".

Also: [attire] "arranged 'in the manner of kamikaze fundamentalists.'"

And last but hardly not least we have of course the Texas City disaster of 1947. A merchant vessel being loaded with fertilizer of the ammonium nitrate variety [2,300 tons (approximately 2,100 metric tons)] spontaneously detonating, the entire town of Texas City obliterated from the face of the earth.

Described as:  "the deadliest industrial accident in U.S. history, and one of the largest non-nuclear explosions".

A blast the force of which by might be obtained from the detonation of a nuclear weapon!

Let me remind you the ANFO bomb [ammonium-nitrate fuel oil] a favorite of the Irish Republican Army. One particular detonation near the City of London causing $2 billion of property damages [no lives lost]!

Give me ammonium nitrate and give me death?

coolbert.