Silos adjacent to Beirut port explosion about to collapse

LEBANON’S government has warned that the damaged silos next to the site of the Beirut port explosion are at imminent risk of collapse, telling workers at the port to prepare to evacuate.

The half-destroyed concrete silos shielded much of the Lebanese capital from the August 2020 blast, which killed more than 200 people when improperly stored ammonium nitrate fertiliser and fireworks exploded at a port warehouse.

The concrete structures were heavily damaged and left tilting next to a 15m-deep crater. Since then they have stood as a monument to government inaction. The state has done little to rebuild the city nor implemented the reforms needed to address one of the worst economic collapses worldwide since the industrial revolution.

While the government has proposed demolishing the silos, families of those who died in the blast say they are a crime scene whose removal before an investigation is complete would amount to a cover-up.

However, subsidence of the silos has increased markedly in recent weeks, with a French civil engineer who volunteered for a government-commissioned team of experts saying the north silo was “on path for catastrophic failure”.

“Inclination increasing exponentially, confirmed by all three North Block sensors,” Emmanuel Durand said in an update on Wednesday.

The rate of tilting was 13.45mm per hour on Wednesday afternoon, he said, an “instant rate” of collapse compared with no more than 0.5mm a day two weeks ago.

Firefighters have been unable to extinguish spontaneous fires at the site, ignited by tons of fermenting grain reaching combustion temperatures in hot summer weather.

Lebanon’s ministries of environment and public health have ordered workers within 500m of the site to prepare to evacuate.

In the event of collapse, residents living within 1,500m (just under a mile) should close windows, wear a face covering and run their air conditioners, as fungal spores from the fermenting grain could cause health problems, the ministry said in a statement.