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The port area, which has become a military zone since the August 4 explosion, can only be entered with the permission of the Lebanese army, whose members guarding the entrance greet you with dozens of stories from that fateful day. One of them tells Asharq Al-Awsat how the blast threw him a great distance before it struck one of the iron wires that prevented him from being killed and hit the ground, after which the bitter journey began in search of his companions, who assures that 8 of them died. The officer assures that everyone knew of the existence of “chemical materials” in the hangar that they exploded, “but we think they were like other materials that enter the port daily.”
From the entrance to the port, to the waste of the wheat, which was severely damaged and the decision to demolish it, the area looks like scorched earth. Thousands of warehouses, cars completely destroyed and overcrowded, and piles of debris from explosions litter the squares. As for the environment of the building, you feel that it is exclusively a death zone. The closer he got, the more explosive materials mixed with the smell of sewage and a lot of blood spilling there. Whereas the amber containing ammonium nitrate was adjacent to the hallway building and there was no trace left, like the other adjacent pavilions. Its explosion resulted in a large crater covered in seawater, and thousands of birds flocked to it in search of the scattered wheat.
The visitor might think that this is the state of the port, before completing his way to the second semester destined to the unloading and loading of the merchandise, imagine that he is now in another region or even in another country, since there the business it is active and there is no impact from the explosion. Gigantic heavy machinery unloading goods and hundreds of thousands of colorful containers, the scene became surreal, as death and destruction in the first section of the port mix with the hustle and bustle of life in the second section.
It only took a few days to get the port back into operation after the explosion. Today it is operating normally, as confirmed by the Director General of Port Management and Investments of Beirut Basem Al-Qaisi. The container terminal, despite the presence of some broken cranes, received 200,000 containers from August 11 to 10 this month, which is the highest rate compared to the last two years, noting that there are Corona, these business was reduced by 60% in the ports of the world. In a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Qaisi indicated that the general cargo berths have recovered their capacity at a rate ranging between 65 and 70%, so that grain and food are transported directly from the ships mills, while other materials are stored in resilient buildings in the heavily damaged free zone. Currently, the owners of some properties have repaired and maintained, which has led to their re-establishment of activity, in a percentage that ranges between 60 and 70%.
The port basically lost a large part of the pavilions and offices due to the explosion, including the “customs clearance” offices, so the works being carried out on the port campus were transferred to the airport.
The army, in cooperation with the Civil Defense, continues to work on surveying the area, screening and inspecting containers that were not received by their owners, especially those containing hazardous materials. According to the head of Parliament’s Working Committee, MP Nazih Najm, there are currently 52 containers out of 163 that have been handled by the army that contain flammable and explosive goods since 2009, and the Supreme Defense Council has assigned a private German company to get rid of them. The general director of the port indicates that the army isolated these containers in a safe place, and they were handed over to the Germans, who have been working since last week to analyze them, package them and transport them out of the country.
Along with the removal of these and other containers and the start of the repair and restoration of some pavilions and buildings, a serious discussion began among stakeholders about the future of the port and its role. In a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, Najm said: “The cost of bringing the port back to what it was is not huge, but we are supposed to first define what we want from the port of Beirut. If we want it to play a competitive role in the region after recent developments, it is supposed to expand and design studies to convert It is divided into tourist, and gasoline and gas tanks are placed in a new berth, provided that all this is discussed in a workshop that the government puts in it goes on as soon as it is installed in cooperation with international companies, especially since the port is capable of contributing billions of dollars to the state treasury if we invest it well.
