The recent incident in Beirut, Lebanon, on August 4, 2020, has raised the awareness of the explosion hazards of ammonium nitrate [AN]. Although AN has been used for many years as an ingredient in explosives and also as a fertilizer, recognition of AN as a self‐reactive material with the potential for detonation is not well‐known to regulatory authorities. As a consequence, inadequate control of storage has led to massive and disastrous explosions, typically following fire in the storage structures or in nearby storage of combustible materials. The purpose of this historical summary of AN incidents is to highlight the explosion hazards and to provide some insight into the measures that are needed to prevent such incidents.

中文翻译：

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硝酸铵灾害历史记录

最近于 2020 年 8 月 4 日在黎巴嫩贝鲁特发生的事件提高了人们对硝酸铵 [AN] 爆炸危险的认识。尽管 AN 多年来一直用作炸药的成分和肥料，但监管机构并不知道 AN 是一种具有爆炸潜力的自反应材料。因此，存储控制不当导致了大规模的灾难性爆炸，通常是在存储结构中或附近的可燃材料存储中发生火灾之后。这份 AN 事故历史摘要的目的是突出爆炸危险，并提供一些有关预防此类事故所需措施的见解。