‘Have a blast’ also means to have a wonderful time, and the most enjoyable experience of your life. It means, have fun, enjoy it, and have a good time, another way to describe an enjoyable experience.

Some couples call it their wedding.

And there was that silence in the air, the silence between a husband and wife, and it is unlike any other silence except perhaps the awful stillness you hear between the flash of an atomic bomb and the blast. Five, four, three, two, one.

A large amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the Port of Beirut, exploded, causing 218 deaths, 7,500 injuries, and US$15 billion in property damage, and leaving an estimated 300,000 people homeless.

A cargo of 2,750 tones of the substance (1.1 kilotons of TNT) had been stored in a warehouse without proper safety measures for the previous six years, after having been confiscated by the Lebanese authorities from the abandoned ship MV Rhosus.

The blast was felt across Turkey, Syria, Israel, Palestine, parts of Europe, and was heard in Cyprus, more than 240 km away.

It was detected by the United States Geological Survey as a seismic event of magnitude 3.3, and is considered one of the most powerful artificial non-nuclear explosions in history.