Two thousand seven hundred tonnes of ammonium nitrate, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded, and nobody held responsible.
At 18:07 on 4 August 2020, approximately 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in Hangar 12 at the port of Beirut detonated.
It was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded. It was heard in Cyprus, 240 kilometres away. It registered as a seismic event of about magnitude 3.3.
At least 218 people were killed. Around 7,000 were injured, many of them by flying glass. Roughly 300,000 people were made homeless in a single moment, and much of the eastern half of the city — Gemmayzeh, Mar Mikhael, Karantina, Achrafieh — was structurally damaged.
Where the cargo came from
The ammonium nitrate arrived in 2013 on the MV Rhosus, a Moldovan-flagged ship that put into Beirut with engine trouble on a voyage from Georgia to Mozambique. The cargo was offloaded and stored in Hangar 12.
It sat there for six years.
Port officials, customs officials and the judiciary wrote to each other about it repeatedly — at least ten documented letters warning that the material was dangerous and asking for it to be re-exported, sold or destroyed. Nothing was done.
Senior political and security officials, including the president and the prime minister, were warned in writing in July 2020, weeks before the explosion.
The investigation
Nobody has been convicted.
The Lebanese investigation has been obstructed continuously. Two successive lead judges have faced legal challenges, removal attempts and, in one case, formal charges brought against the investigator himself. Senior politicians summoned for questioning have refused to appear and have claimed immunity. Parliament has declined to lift it.
In October 2021, protests against the judge investigating the blast ended in gun battles in Tayouneh in which seven people were killed.
The families of the victims have campaigned continuously for six years — weekly, publicly, and at considerable personal cost. They are still campaigning.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the UN have all called for an independent international investigation. Lebanon’s government has not agreed to one.
What is there now
The grain silos. The 48-metre concrete silos took the force of the blast and are widely credited with absorbing enough of it to shield the western half of the city. Part of the northern block collapsed in 2022 after a fire in the fermenting grain inside, and further sections have since come down.
Whether to demolish or preserve them has been argued about since 2020. The families of the victims have pressed for preservation as a memorial; the government has repeatedly moved towards demolition. They are still standing, in part.
The memorial. There is a statue — The Gesture, made from twisted debris by the artist Nadim Karam — near the port entrance, and a wall of portraits of the dead that the families maintain.
The damage. Six years on, a great deal of the surrounding area has been repaired, largely by NGOs, volunteers and private donation rather than by the state. Some buildings have not been.
Visiting
The port itself is not open and is a controlled area. Do not attempt to enter.
The silos are visible from Charles Helou Avenue, from the elevated road, and from parts of Mar Mikhael and Achrafieh.
Behave as you would at any site where hundreds of people died. The families are there. Weekly vigils are held. This is not a ruin to pose in front of.
If you want to do something useful, the recovery of the surrounding neighbourhoods was carried out substantially by Lebanese volunteer organisations, several of which are still working and still take donations.
