Port an ‘accident waiting to happen’

BEIRUT BLAST: AREA DESCRIBED AS A ‘MINEFIELD’

Bubbling sea of yellow, green substances burn holes through containers.

After a blast of historic proportions at Beirut’s port last year, Lebanon only escaped a second chemical inferno by chance, the German company clearing the dockside has said.

Michael Wentler, a chemical expert managing Combi Lift’s Beirut operation, said thousands of litres of dangerous substances stored in decaying containers for more than a decade had turned the area into a minefield of chemical hazards.

“We found substances that, if mixed together, would lead to an explosion,” he said, recounting an assignment that compared to no other. “The port is lucky, because the containers have a distance” between them.

There were a series of subsequent blazes in the port since the 4 August explosion that killed more than 200 people and devastated swathes of Beirut.

Heavy lift transport company Combi Lift in November last year signed a contract with Lebanese authorities to deal with the hazardous substances at the blast site.

This month, Wentler and his team finished treating 52 containers in a process he said revealed the lethal chaos that has long prevailed at Beirut harbour.

“I have never seen a situation like this before in my life,” Wentler said, describing festering chemical mixtures so corrosive they burned gaping holes through massive shipping containers.

“You have like a sea or a river of yellow and green substances that came out” of some containers, he added. “These chemicals were bubbling.”

The containers, which have been at the port for more than 10 years, were stored haphazardly in seven locations. Most were in an open-air cargo zone at the opposite end of the blast site.

Interim port chief Bassem al-Kaisi said in November Beirut could have been “wiped out” if the substances caught fire.

The blast was caused by tons of ammonium nitrate that had been inadequately stored for more than six years.

Authorities are yet to explain why the large fertiliser shipment ended up in Lebanon and why it stayed there so long.

The origin of chemical substances treated by Combi Lift is no clearer.

The substances were sealed in special containers that Combi Lift plans to ship to Germany at the end of this month. –