Dangerous chemicals from Beirut port bound for Germany

A ship loaded with dozens of containers full of hazardous materials from Beirut port is ready to sail for Germany.

German company Combi Lift was given the job of removing dangerous substances from the port after the August 4 explosion last year that killed more than 200 people and damaged large parts of the Lebanese capital.

The last of 59 containers was lifted on to the ship on Friday.

Heiko Felderhoff, chief executive of Combi Lift, said they would be disposed of in Germany.

Combi Lift told The National that it expected the ship to leave for Germany today.

Elias Assouad, head of the

Lebanese-German Business Council, said the project had cleared the port of “all toxic, cancerous, flammable and highly reactive chemicals that have been stored here for decades”.

The German company had been expected to deal with only 49 containers of hazardous material, he said.

But they ended up “handling more than 75, of which 59 will be shipped”.

He said 15 others would be “disposed of within safe and environmentally sound procedures in situ”.

A chemicals expert managing the operation told AFP after finishing the job in February that Beirut only avoided a second chemical inferno by chance.

Michael Wentler said that he had “never seen a situation like this before”, describing festering chemical mixtures so corrosive they burnt gaping holes through shipping containers.

Hydrochloric acid, a corrosive and toxic substance, made up 60 per cent of the chemicals Combi Lift came across, he said.