It’s odd timing as I’ve been listening to a podcast called Destroyer of Worlds, which discusses the rise of the nuclear age and what it meant for the world. The many different emotions and thoughts of people after the events of August 6th and 9th, 1945, changed the world forever.

The power for one man to wipe out most of civilization as we know it was introduced to the world. Whereas there have been many rulers and men of power in history, there had never been this kind of power before. An instantaneous power to destroy.

When the Beirut explosion happened, I was right in the middle of this 6-hour podcast, and I couldn’t help but wonder some of the specs on the explosion. In some ways, I hated that. That here was this explosion that killed hundreds and injured thousands and yet what my mind instantly went to was “how big was it compared to the nuclear bombs?”

In a sick way, my mind almost makes this comparison as if it would be cool if it were close to as big. In Dan Carlin’s podcast, he’s said a quote many times throughout, I believe the quote is attributed to Joseph Stalin, though I’m not sure he really said it.

“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”

It seems this is often the sad truth. The bigger the tragedy, the less personally affected we are by the number.

In case you’re curious, I did some research on the size by tons and te size of the Beirut explosion was the equivalent of about 350 tons, the Hiroshima explosion was around 15,000 tons. I just made a post the other day about the weirdness of being able to see videos of this explosion because of the age we’re in and how big the explosion was. I can only imagine the destruction caused by the Hiroshima nuclear explosion.

What’s more, the explosions caused by the only two nuclear weapons used in war, are babies compared to the size of nuclear weapons that were developed after. Using the same comparison, here’s the numbers:

  • Beirut explosion: 350 tons of TNT
  • Hiroshima explosion: 15,000 tons of TNT
  • Tsar Nuclear explosion: 58,000,000 tons of TNT explosion

Let that last number sink in. the destruction caused by it would be unimaginable. If that bomb were to explode over a city like Paris, the entire city would be destroyed.

Let that sink in.