On the day two years after over 200 people lost their lives in a giant explosion in Beirut, large parts of the city’s massive grain silo collapsed.
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It has been two long years for the families of the more than 200 people killed in the August 2020 Beirut port explosion.
The disaster in Beirut was so powerful that it could be heard and felt in Cyprus, as much as 200 kilometers away.
In Beirut on Thursday, thousands of demonstrators gathered to march in an emotional protest. The protesters sang songs condemning the government’s failure to uncover the truth behind the blast.
An hour before the protests, approx. at 2 p.m. local time, large parts of Beirut’s grain silo collapsed due to a fire that started two weeks ago. The grain silos were also damaged during the violent explosion in 2020.
The collapse inevitable
French civil engineer Emmanuel Durand, who monitors the silos via remote sensors, told the local newspaper L’Orient Today that the silo was tilting 13 millimeters per hour.
In the months before, it was only tilting at a rate of 2 millimeters per day, which meant that collapse was almost inevitable.
–Don’t you remember what happened? The explosion that changed everything.
The explosion in 2020 occurred as a result of a fire in a warehouse in the harbor area where 2,750 tonnes of explosive ammonium nitrate had been stored for six years.
The substance caused one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in the world ever.
–Lebanese authorities quickly came out after the blast, saying they would do everything they could to hold those responsible accountable, and the government was forced to resign. But many of them have continued to rule the country in the absence of a new government.
Now, two years later, still little has happened.
Ever since the explosion, in which more than 7,000 people were also injured and much of the surrounding neighborhoods were destroyed.
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The investigation blocked
According to AFP, this tragedy is one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in recent times.
– But the world has not done enough to find out what happened, say six UN experts.
The experts call on the UN Human Rights Council to start an international investigation into the deadly explosion.
– On the second anniversary, we are discouraged that people in Lebanon are still waiting for justice. We ask that an international investigation be launched immediately, say the UN experts.
According to them, the national investigation has been blocked several times.
–It is still unclear who was responsible for the storage, and why repeated messages about risk were ignored.
The UN experts say the explosion in 2020 and the aftermath have put the spotlight on systemic problems with governance and widespread corruption in Lebanon.
The port of Beirut is located in the middle of the city, and one of the most important supply lines in Lebanon. 300,000 people have become homeless as a result of the explosion.
This drone video shows the devastation after the explosions in Beirut, August 4, 2020:
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