Lebanon orders Beirut silos to be demolished

Lebanon authorized the demolition of Beirut’s grain silos on Thursday, rejecting requests to preserve them as a memorial site following a disastrous 2020 port explosion.

“We assigned the Council for Development and Reconstruction the responsibility of monitoring the demolition process,” Information Minister Ziad Makari said during a cabinet meeting, without providing a timeline.

Makari stated that the government made the decision based on a report by Lebanon’s Khatib and Alami Engineering Company, which warned that the silos in the capital Beirut’s port might collapse within months.

“Repairing them will be extremely expensive,” Makari stated.

Last year, Swiss business Amann Engineering advocated for their demolition as well, claiming that the silos with the most severe damage were tilting at a pace of two millimeters per day.

Once capable of handling more than 100,000 tons, the enormous 48-meter-tall (157-foot) structure has become synonymous with the August 4 port disaster, which killed more than 200 people and severely destroyed large swaths of the capital in 2020.

The silos absorbed the majority of the blast’s energy, protecting significant areas of west Beirut from its devastation.

Activists and some relatives of bomb victims have urged for the preservation of the grain silos as a memorial place.

“The silos bear testimony to the slaughter you perpetrated against us,” the victim’s families stated in a statement last month, alluding to officials.

“No matter how hard you try, they will not be demolished.”

To allay any outrage over the move, the cabinet tasked the interior and culture ministries on Thursday with creating a memorial remembering the explosion’s victims.

According to authorities, the explosion was caused by a cargo of ammonium nitrate fertilizer that caught fire after being imprisoned in chaotic conditions for years.

For months, investigations into the disaster have been halted due to what rights organizations and relatives of the dead have described as political meddling.

Human Rights Watch accused senior government officials, members of parliament, and the country’s security services of lethal carelessness that contributed to the disaster last year.