THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 11 August 2020 (Beirut in the dark (Indian Express))

Beirut in the dark (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2: Governance 
Prelims level:Beirut Blasts 
Mains level: Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability

Context:

• The explosion in the Beirut docks area last week has left more than 150 citizens dead and over 5,000 injured. 
• Swathesof the city levelled and the dock out of commission, which could cause a food crisis in Lebanon in the days ahead. 
• Shock and confusion over the cause of the devastating explosion has turned into public anger, bringing on the spectre of a political problem. All this damage owed to a single explosion. 
• The blast had produced a powerful shock wave and a mushroom cloud, and it was briefly mistaken for the detonation of a nuclear weapon. 
• But the explosion turned out to have involved 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, which had been improperly stored in a densely populated area.

Dual use:

• Ammonium nitrate is best known as an agricultural fertiliser, but it is dual-use. 
• It is also an element of binary mining explosives like ANFO and the fertiliser or nitrate bomb, an improvised device used by militant organisations. 
• The same technology was also used in Oklahoma City in 1995, Bali in 2002 and Norway in 2011. 
• After a nitrate stockpile was revealed to have caused the disaster in Beirut, other nations have woken up to the risk. 
• In Australia, for instance, residents of Newcastle are concerned about a storage facility which holds about four times the volume of nitrate stockpiled in Beirut.

 Better late than never:

• In India, there is concern over 740 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in a customs warehouse in Chennai since 2015, when it was apparently imported without the required licence. 
• The customs department has clarified that it is stored in a safe location far from human habitation.
• But given the hazardous nature of the chemical, which has been under the Explosives Act since 2011, it could have been disposed of. 
• In fact, in dealing with the dispute between the importer and the customs office, a court had drawn attention to the number of accidents involving ammonium nitrate across the country. 
• The fact that in a span of four years, 16,000 tonnes of the chemical went missing. 
• S Ramadoss of the PMK has suggested that the stockpile could be diverted to agricultural use, and customs officials are in a hurry to dispose of the chemical at the earliest. 

 Conclusion:

• The ammonium nitrate blast is a grimreminder: Despite the strict regulation of hazardous substances, risks remain.

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Prelims Questions:

Q.1)With reference to the Tanner-Whitehouse 3 (TW3), consider the following statements:
1. It is an age-verification test.
2. TW3 essentially involves an x-ray of the left wrist to check what stage of bone fusion a child has reached.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: C

Mains Questions:
Q.1) What is Ammonium Nitrate?How this can be safely stored then?