How can shockwaves break windows miles away without injuring people or resulting in much other structural damage?

Question

So I don’t want to imply that the Beirut disaster didn’t result in any casualties, because that’s obviously not true. But I was also thinking about the asteroid that hit Chelyabinsk which resulted in a lot of broken windows but not a great deal of injuries.

In: Physics

Answer 1

Shockwave is a pressure difference, so it works based on surface area.

Let’s say an explosion is quite far away and it only created a pressure difference of 1% of regular atmospheric pressure where your window is. Now for a human that’s almost nothing dangerous, equivalent of going 100m up, only felt in the ears as if a plane takes off.

But even that difference will push on a window of 2 square meters with 200 kg, enough to break many of them.