The New York Times - USA (2020-08-06)

A14 Y + THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALTHURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2020

Explosion in Beirut

CAIRO — The countdown to ca-
tastrophe in Beirut started six
years ago when a troubled, Rus-
sian-leased cargo ship made an
unscheduled stop at the city’s
port.
The ship was trailed by debts,
crewed by disgruntled sailors and
dogged by a small hole in its hull
that meant water constantly had
to be pumped out. And it carried a
volatile cargo: more than 2,
tons of ammonium nitrate, a com-
bustible material used to make
fertilizers — and bombs — that
was destined for Mozambique.
The ship, the Rhosus, never
made it there. Embroiled in a fi-
nancial and diplomatic dispute, it
was abandoned by the Russian
who had leased it. And the ammo-
nium nitrate was transferred to a
dockside warehouse in Beirut,
where it would languish for years,
until Tuesday, when Lebanese of-
ficials said it exploded in a shock
wave that killed more than 100
people and wounded 5,000 others.
The story of the ship and its
deadly cargo, which emerged
Wednesday in accounts from Leb-
anon, Russia and Ukraine, offered
a bleak tale of how legal battles, fi-
nancial wrangling and, appar-
ently, chronic negligence set the

stage for a horrific blast that dev-

astated one of the Middle East’s

most fondly regarded cities.

“I was horrified,” Boris Proko-

shev, the ship’s 70-year-old retired

captain, said about the accident,

speaking in a phone interview

from Sochi, Russia.

In Lebanon, public rage focused

on the negligence of the authori-

ties, who were aware of the dan-

ger posed by the storage of 2,

tons of ammonium nitrate in a

warehouse on the Beirut docks

yet failed to act.

Senior customs officials wrote

to the Lebanese courts at least six

times from 2014 to 2017, seeking

guidance on how to dispose of the

ammonium nitrate, according to

public records posted to social me-

dia by a Lebanese lawmaker, Sa-

lim Aoun.

“In view of the serious danger

posed by keeping this shipment in

the warehouses in an inappropri-

ate climate,” Shafik Marei, the di-

rector of Lebanese customs,

wrote in May 2016, “we repeat our

request to demand the maritime

agency to re-export the materials

immediately.”

The customs officials proposed

a number of solutions, including

donating the ammonium nitrate

to the Lebanese Army, or selling it

to the privately owned Lebanese

Explosives Company. Mr. Marei

sent a second, similar letter a year

later. The judiciary failed to re-

spond to any of his pleas, the

records suggested.

Lebanese judicial officials could

not be reached for comment on

Wednesday.

The Rhosus, which flies the flag

of Moldova, arrived in Beirut in

November 2013, two months after

it had left the Black Sea port of Ba-

tumi, Georgia. The ship was

leased by Igor Grechushkin, a

Russian businessman living in Cy-

prus.

Mr. Prokoshev, the captain,

joined the ship in Turkey after a

mutiny over unpaid wages by a

previous crew. Mr. Grechushkin

had been paid $1 million to trans-

port the high-density ammonium

nitrate to the port of Beira in Mo-

zambique, the captain said.

The ammonium nitrate was

purchased by the International

Bank of Mozambique for Fábrica

de Explosivos de Moçambique, a

firm that makes commercial ex-

plosives, Baroudi and Partners, a

Lebanese law firm representing

the ship’s crew, said in a statement

issued Wednesday.

Mr. Grechushkin, who was in

Cyprus at the time and communi-

cating by telephone, told the cap-

tain he didn’t have enough money

to pay for passage through the

Suez Canal. So he sent the ship to

Beirut to take on additional cargo,

heavy machinery.

But in Beirut, the machinery

would not fit into the ship, which

was about 30 or 40 years old, the

captain said.

Then Lebanese officials found

the ship unseaworthy and im-

pounded the vessel for failing to

pay the port fees. When the ship’s

suppliers tried to contact Mr.

Grechushkin for payment for fuel,

food and other essentials, he could

not be reached, having apparently

abandoned the ship he had leased.

Six crew members returned

home, but Lebanese officials

forced the captain and three other

crew members, all from Ukraine,

to remain aboard until the debt is-

sue was solved. Lebanese immi-

gration restrictions prevented the

crew members from leaving the

ship, and they struggled to obtain

food and other supplies, according

to their lawyers.

Increasingly desperate, Mr.

Prokoshev sold the ship’s fuel and

used the proceeds to hire a legal

team. Those lawyers also warned

the Lebanese authorities the ship

was in danger “of sinking or blow-

ing up at any moment,” according

to the law firm’s statement.

A Lebanese judge ordered the

release of the crew on compas-

sionate grounds in August 2014,

and Mr. Grechushkin, having re-

surfaced, paid for their passage

back to Ukraine.

Mr. Grechushkin could not be

reached for comment Wednesday.

The crew’s departure left the

Lebanese authorities in charge of

the ship’s deadly cargo, which was

moved to a storage facility known

as Hangar 12, where it remained

until the explosion on Tuesday.

Ammonium nitrate, when

mixed with fuel, creates a power-

ful explosive commonly used in

construction and mining. But it

has also been used in explosive

devices by terrorists like the 1995

Oklahoma bomber, Timothy Mc-

Veigh, and the Islamic State.

The general manager of

Beirut’s port, Hassan Koraytem,

said in an interview that customs

and security officials had repeat-

edly asked Lebanon’s courts to

have the material moved. “But

nothing happened,” he said.

“We were told the cargo would

be sold in an auction,” he added.

“But the auction never happened,

and the judiciary never acted.”

Mr. Koraytem said that when he

had first heard the blast on Tues-

day, he figured it might be an air

attack.

He had “no idea” what had

caused the initial fire at the stor-

age facility that preceded the sec-

ond, far larger blast, he said. Four

of his employees died in the explo-

sion. “This is not the time to

blame,” he said. “We are living a

national catastrophe.”

But for many Lebanese, the

story is another sign of the chronic

mismanagement of a ruling class

that steered the country into an

economic crisis this year.

Mr. Prokoshev placed the fault

with Mr. Grechushkin, and with

Lebanese officials, who insisted

on first impounding the boat and

then on keeping the ammonium

nitrate in the port “instead of

spreading it on their fields.”

As for the Rhosus, Mr. Prokshev

learned from friends who sailed to

Beirut that it had sunk in the har-

bor in 2015 or 2016.

His only surprise on hearing

that, he added, was that it had not

gone down sooner.

A Ship Abandoned at the Dock, and an Explosive Cargo Dumped in a Warehouse

By DECLAN WALSH

and ANDREW HIGGINS

Declan Walsh reported from Cairo,
and Andrew Higgins from Mos-
cow. Reporting was contributed by
Hwaida Saad in Beirut, Nada
Rashwan in Cairo and Christiaan
Triebert in New York.

The cargo ship Rhosus in Varna, Bulgaria, in 2010. It was aban-

doned in Beirut in 2014 after its port fees were not paid.

PRES PANAYOTOV/SHUTTERSTOCK

Mapping the Devastation

Explosions erupted in Lebanon’s capital on Tuesday evening, leveling buildings, damaging hospitals and shattering windows for miles. More than 5,

people were injured and at least 135 were killed. A shock wave raced from the site of the blast, on Beirut’s industrial waterfront, into the city’s densely

populated residential neighborhoods and downtown shopping districts. More than 750,000 people live in the parts of the city that were damaged.

By ANJALI SINGHVI, SCOTT REINHARD, ALLISON McCANN, LAUREN LEATHERBY and BLACKI MIGLIOZZI

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Site of

explosions

Satellite image

captured after

the explosion

Image captured

before the explosion

Sources: Damage locations based on photos and video showing destruction from the blast. Satellite images from Planet Labs (after) and Bing (before).

Street data from OpenStreetMap. Population data from WorldPop, University of Southampton. Population figures are approximate. THE NEW YORK TIMES

Beirut

LEBANON

Damage at Hôtel-Dieu de

France hospital, where

around 400 injured

people were later taken.

Apartment windows

blown out in Achrafieh.

Glass shattered

in upscale shopping

district.

Damage on Charles Malek.

St. George

Hospital damaged.

Wounded children

in Gemmayzeh.

Rubble

Storefronts

shattered downtown.

Patients evacuated

from Karantina

Hospital.

Capsized ship

Warehouse storing

ammonium nitrate

Beirut Port Silos

and surrounding

buildings severely

damaged.

Facade stripped

off towers.

Damaged buildings

Damaged buildings

Warehouses destroyed

or damaged.

Damage at

Grand Serail.

Damage at Sodeco

Square mall.

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