Countdown started 6 years ago with a leaky ship
Instead of making it to Mozambique, the deadly cargo of Rhosus ended up destroying Beirut
The countdown to catastrophe in Beirut started six years ago when a troubled, Russian-leased cargo ship made an unscheduled stop at the city’s port.
The ship was trailed by debts, crewed by disgruntled sailors and dogged by a hole in its hull that meant water had to be constantly pumped out. And it carried a volatile cargo: more than 2,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, a combustible material used to make fertilisers and bombs, that was destined for Mozambique.
The ship, the Rhosus, never made it. Embroiled in a financial and diplomatic dispute, it was abandoned by the Russian businessman who had leased it. And the ammonium nitrate was transferred to a dockside warehouse in Beirut, where it would languish for years, until Tuesday, when Lebanese officials said it exploded, sending a shock wave that killed more than 137 people and wounded another 5,000.
Sailed from Georgia
“I was horrified,” said Boris Prokoshev, the ship’s 70-year-old retired Russian captain, about the accident, speaking from Sochi, Russia.
The Rhosus, which flew the flag of Moldova, arrived in Beirut in November 2013 from Batumi, Georgia. The ship was leased by Igor Grechushkin, a
Russian businessman living in Cyprus, who had been paid $1 million to transport the ammonium nitrate to Mozambique. The material was purchased for Fabrica de Explosivos de Mocambique, which makes commercial explosives.
No action from judiciary
But Grechushkin didn’t have enough money to pay for passage through the Suez Canal and sent the ship to Beirut to earn some cash by taking on an additional cargo of heavy machinery.
In Beirut, officials found the ship unseaworthy and impounded it for failing to pay the port docking fees and other charges. When the ship’s suppliers tried to contact Grechushkin for payments, he was found to have abandoned the ship he had leased.
Even as the ship remained in port and its deadly cargo moved to a warehouse, customs officials wrote to Lebanese courts at least six times from 2014 to 2017, seeking guidance on how to dispose of the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate. But the judiciary failed to respond to any of the pleas.