The Beirut port explosion. What went wrong?
The explosion in the port had came from the port warehouse where about 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate were found to have been stored there since 2014, when a Russian vessel, MV Rhosus destined to Mozambique stopped at the port due to financial constraint of the vessel's owner which had resulted to a mutiny among the crews onboard.
The vessel was then detained by the port authorities for operation violation, unpaid port fees and many complaints by the Russian and Ukrainian crews over their unpaid salaries and shortage of supplies. The sailing to its original destination was never resume since.
As the result, the cargos on the vessel, including that of the 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate which was considered a Dangerous Cargo (DG) under the IMO classification were consificated by the port authorities and stored in the port warehouse since 2013. The transfer of this DG cargo to another vessel was never allowed due to its DG nature and lack of necessary experties to oversee the entire process.
What went wrong?
As of now, the local and international investigators are still probing the cause of the explosion which rocked the entire City of Beirut claming hundreds of life while wounding thousands out there.
What has been reported on the storage condition of the DG cargo brings more scrutiny on the port maintenance in Beirut and the ineffectiveness of regular safety and security checks at the port. Whether such inspections and maintenance has really being carried out and how regular of such measures are being undertaken also poses a questions has records were found to be incompleted, scaterred and there are many missing pieces of it.
Questions from the public, how on earth such had taken place, why did it happened and how come the authorities who are aware of such cargo at the port did not take necessary precautions to prevent the tragedy from taking place.
Many had concluded for sure, lacking in awareness, safety measures were also lacking, security at the port were poor of standards, inefficiency of the port personnel in handling of such DG storage, the warehousing condition were also poorly maintained, there was never any frequent inspections on DG cargo to ensure safety and security are in order.
Senior safety and security officials were also blamed for their non-cautious attitudes. Lastly, all we can see is there are also possibilities of corrupt elements within the process which had cause the entire operations to be ineffective in the sense that "everyone was aware of the situation, but they were made as it isn't".
The IMO, WCO and the International Association of Ports & Habors (IAPH) must also take these results and investigations seriously and set a precedent to other shipping lines, port authorities and logistics companies to take this kind of shipment and storage really serious and not repeating yet another explosion elsewhere.
The various guidelines and laws relating to handling of DG cargos in designated areas must also be revised and upgraded in order to strengthen the security and safety not only in the various facilities but also humankind.
