Beirut explosion still leaves questions unanswered
On 4 August 2020, a seismic explosion damaged half of Beirut, caused by the storage of large quantities of ammonium nitrate. Hundreds of people were killed and thousands injured in the explosion which, six months after its occurrence, is still not fully understood. The opacity of the investigation does not entirely reassure public opinion, which does not fully believe the official version of events.
The Lebanese government claims that the detonation of the ammonium nitrate cargo was caused by a fire accidentally started by a team of welders who had come that day to seal a hole in one of the sides of hangar 12 of the port. For this reason, the responsibility has been placed, for the moment, on Badri Daher, the port customs director, and 24 other workers who have already been arrested and imprisoned.
João Rodrigues participated between 2016 and 2017 in the European programme that assists Lebanon in border management, and says that if the training had continued, this tragedy would not have happened. One of his tasks was to teach how to transport and store dual-use civilian chemicals in accordance with international safety standards. On the other hand, Rodrigues does not rule out the possibility that the explosion was intentional due to the difficulty of this material to explode in the way it did: "It is a very difficult explosive to detonate, it does not explode without a precursor and the port is a highly guarded place". Hares Suleiman, professor of chemistry, does not rule out this version either: "Ammonium nitrate does not explode with a simple spark from a blowtorch. It needs either a powerful detonator, which could be another explosion, or it has to be transformed into a gaseous state at a temperature of over 160 degrees Celsius. "
Despite the Lebanese government's version, acting Prime Minister Hassan Diab himself questioned the origin of the explosion. The FBI claimed that 500 tonnes had exploded, to which Diab posed the question "Where did the rest go?". "It may not have been the entire 2,750 tonne cargo that exploded, but a fraction of half that was in drier, better preserved sacks," is the response of Dr Samaneh Moafi, senior researcher at Forensic Architecture. This British association has carried out the most comprehensive investigation to date by reconstructing the facts by cross-referencing thousands of images from open sources.
Another explanation that seems to make more sense is the one that originates from the information given by journalist Firas Hatoum on Lebanese Al Jadeed television. He reported that in the same warehouse where the ammonium nitrate was found, there were between 100 and 200 kilos of picric acid. This substance, unlike ammonium nitrate, is very sensitive and prone to explosion depending on the situation.
To all this, we must add the information that continues to emerge about the incident. Michel Aoun's government contracted a German company called "Combi Lift" for nearly three and a half million dollars to handle 52 containers of chemicals that posed a risk to the Lebanese capital. After processing all the containers, project manager Michael Wintler told AFP, "We found materials that, if mixed together, could cause an explosion by punching holes in the containers caused by corrosion."
However, despite the many theories and hypotheses that have been put forward by various sources, there are still unknowns that have not yet been answered. What is immovable for the moment is the imprisonment of 25 people, Badri Dahrer and 24 of his employees, and the indictment of Prime Minister Diab along with three other former ministers.