BEIRUT —
Eight more grain silos at the
Beirut port toppled Tuesday, succumbing to damage
from a devastating 2020 explosion in the third such collapse in a month, AFP
correspondents reported.
اضافة اعلان
A cloud of dust
rose over the port after the collapse, which brought down the last of the
northern block of silos that was more heavily damaged in the blast and where a
fire had been burning since last month.
The remaining
southern block is more stable and not at imminent risk of collapse, said French
civil engineer Emmanuel Durand, who has installed sensors on the silos.
Prime Minister
Najib Mikati on Tuesday sent a letter to Public Works Minister Ali Hamieh,
requesting the preservation of the southern block as a memorial site.
The silos had
absorbed much of the impact of the massive explosion of haphazardly stored
ammonium nitrate fertilizer that killed more than 200 people on August 4, 2020.
Only 12 of the
original 48 silos are still standing, all of them in the southern block, Durand
said.
A fire has been
burning in the silos for more than a month, as remaining grain stocks ferment
in the summer heat.
The complex has
come to symbolize the tragic blast, but also state negligence and corruption,
which many
Lebanese blame for the explosion.
“We hold
authorities responsible for what happened with the silos,” said Mariana
Fodoulian, who lost her sister in the explosion.
“We must preserve
the southern block of silos” as a memorial, Fodoulian said, echoing the demands
of many blast victim relatives.
Relatives had
called for a sit-in near the port on Tuesday afternoon.
Hamieh announced
last week that the government had agreed to reserve 25,000sq.m. of the port to
build new grain silos.
This is larger than
the current complex which occupies a space of 21,000sq.m.
Hamieh said funding
would come from international donors as well as the government, which has been
bankrupted by a crushing financial crisis.
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