Lebanese pagers explosions: What is a pager, how it works and reasons why it may explode – Times of India

A collection of explosion of pagers in Lebanon resulted in at the least 9 fatalities, injuring over 2,700. The blasts occurred on Tuesday (Sep 17) in Beirut’s southern suburbs and different areas. In an announcement, Hezbollah mentioned that at 3:30 pm (1230 GMT) pagers utilized by individuals working for the group’s establishments started exploding “mysteriously.”A senior Lebanese safety supply claimed that Israel’s Mossad spy company planted explosives inside these pagers or “beepers” that had been ordered months earlier than the blasts.Taiwan’s Gold Apollo has refused that it didn’t make the pagers used within the detonations. As a substitute, they’d been manufactured by an organization referred to as BAC which has a licence to make use of its model, the corporate mentioned.

What’s a pager?

A pager is a radio-operated digital system used for transmitting temporary textual content messages. The system is normally designed to solely obtain messages, however in some circumstances may also be used to to ship messages. When a pager beeps with a brand new message, the recipient must find a close-by public or landline telephone to reply to the message.
Pagers had been extensively used within the pre-mobile period through the late Nineteen Nineties. It was a crucial communication instrument for medical doctors, journalists and emergency well being service suppliers.
There are a number of varieties of pagers – numeric, alphanumeric and use case. A numeric pager, because the identify suggests, can solely show numbers. It’s the easiest and best pager to make use of. Alphanumeric, then again, can show each numbers and alphabets. Whereas a use case pager is specifically designed for fast alerts and speak to data, significantly in professions that require rapid communication.

Advantages of a pager

One of many main advantages of utilizing a pager or a beeper is the connectivity vary. As a pager works on radio frequencies, it might probably present community protection in distant areas as nicely. One other profit is that the pagers are troublesome to trace – a key cause why Hezabollah was utilizing it. Since a pager is normally meant to solely obtain a message, it’s troublesome to hint.
Additionally, in comparison with cellphones, pagers supply longer battery life and sturdiness. Additionally, they’re easy to make use of, in comparison with a cell phone.

Why pagers exploded in Lebanon

Whereas the precise cause is just not identified but, reviews recommend that overheating of lithium batteries might be a potential cause behind the detonation. Generally utilized in shopper electronics like cellphones, laptops and electrical automobiles, lithium batteries can burn at temperatures close to or above 1,100 levels Fahrenheit (590 levels Celsius).
A Hezbollah anonymously instructed information company AP that the explosions had been the results of a “safety operation concentrating on the units.” The official claimed that “the enemy (Israel) is behind this safety incident.”