How was so much ammonium nitrate left to sit in Beirut's port for years?

[crickets]

Last edited Thu Aug 6, 2020, 10:32 AM - Edit history (2)

Beirut blast: Tracing the explosives that tore the capital apart
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/officials-knew-danger-beirut-port-years-200805032416684.html

Analysis of public records and documents published online show senior Lebanese officials knew for more than six years that the ammonium nitrate was stored in Hangar 12 of Beirut's port.

And they were well aware of the dangers it posed.

The article continues, recounting how the ammonium nitrate came to Beirut on a Russian-owned cargo vessel, the Rhosus, and how it came to be abandoned and stored at the port in 2013.

Months later, on June 27, 2014, then-director of Lebanese Customs Shafik Merhi sent a letter addressed to an unnamed "Urgent Matters judge", asking for a solution to the cargo, according to documents shared online.

Customs officials sent at least five more letters over the next three years - on December 5, 2014, May 6, 2015, May 20, 2016, October 13, 2016, and October 27, 2017 - asking for guidance and warning that the material posed a danger, Badri Daher, the current director of Lebanese Customs, told broadcaster LBCI on Wednesday.

They proposed three options: Export the ammonium nitrate, hand it over to the Lebanese Army, or sell it to the privately-owned Lebanese Explosives Company.

Customs continued to send letters in 2016 and 2017, clearly outlining the danger and requesting action, with no response.

In the October 27, 2017, letter, Daher urged the judge to come to a decision on the matter in view of "the danger ... of leaving these goods in the place they are, and to those working there".

Nearly three years later, the ammonium nitrate was still in the hangar.

Criminal indifference and reliance on borrowed time turned out to be a deadly combination. There's more in the article, but this was as much as I could cover in a minimum of quotes.

[crickets]

1. Saw questions about the issue this morning, edited a crap subject title

so more people might see this article.