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Rabat – Lebanese President Michel Aoun announced that the damage caused to Beirut by last week’s massive ammonium nitrate explosion comes to at least $15 billion.
“The preliminary estimates for the losses suffered after the explosion at the port exceed 15 billion dollars,” tweeted Aoun on August 12.
الرئيس عون تلقى اتصالاً للتعزية والتضامن من الملك الاسباني فيليبي السادس: التقديرات الأولية لخسائر تفجير المرفأ تفوق 15 مليار دولار
— Lebanese Presidency (@LBpresidency) August 12, 2020
The blast, one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions in history, devastated the capital city’s central districts, destroyed warehouses, and caused a major loss of imported goods.
According to Mena Commodities, approximately 85% of the country’s cereals are stored in the port’s grain silos.
The Beirut explosion caused major damage to the silos that have a capacity of 120,000 metric tons of grain each, an important strategic reserve. In addition, Beirut’s port facilitates 60% of Lebanon’s imports.
The UN reported on August 7 that a recent “World Food Program survey found that food has become a major source of concern in Lebanon since the [COVID-19] lockdown, with one-in-two people worried about not having enough to eat.”
The explosion’s destruction of the grain supply exacerbates a pre-existing food security issue, as Beirut residents grapple with far-reaching devastation.
Beirut city governor Marwan Abboud said the death toll from the disaster had risen to 220 as of Monday, while 110 people remained missing.
Observers are directly linking the explosion, caused by 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored unsafely in Beirut’s port for six years, to the widespread corruption plaguing the government.
The Lebanese people launched several protests in Beirut on August 8, following the explosion, to condemn the “incompetence” of the government.
The public outcry led to the resignation of four Lebanese ministers within 48 hours, and then that of the government.
On the August 10 resignation of Lebanon’s government, Prime Minister Hassan Diab attributed the August 4 disaster to endemic corruption.
The Lebanese prosecution will question current and former ministers, starting tomorrow, August 14. The probe will focus on the six years of storage of ammonium nitrate in the port of Beirut, according to a judicial source, reported France 24.
The interrogation will concern the two former Ministers of Public Works, Ghazi Aridi, Michel Najjar, and at least three more, according to the same source.
