Beirut 2020: The Cargo Nobody Moved

At five minutes to six in the evening, a fire crew in Beirut gets a call. A warehouse is burning at the port. Ten of them go: nine firefighters and a paramedic. They are told it is a fire. Nobody tells them what is inside. Inside Hangar 12 are about 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate. It has been there for almost six years. And for almost six years, officials have been writing letters about it. At eight minutes past six, the hangar exploded. The blast was felt more than two hundred kilometres away, in Cyprus. More than two hundred people were killed. The cargo had arrived by ship in 2013, on its way somewhere else. This is the story of how it stayed in Beirut for almost seven years, and why every warning ended on someone else's desk.

In September 2013, a general cargo ship called the Rhosus sailed from Batumi, in Georgia. She flew the flag of Moldova. Her destination was Beira, in Mozambique. In her holds were about 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, ordered by a company that makes explosives for mining. She was not a ship in good shape. That summer, inspectors in Seville, Spain, had detained her for fourteen defects. In November 2013, she entered the port of Beirut. Why she stopped there is still disputed. The captain and Human Rights Watch describe a detour to load extra cargo and earn money for the trip. The crew's lawyers wrote of technical problems. Either way, she never left. Inspectors found her unfit to sail and banned her from leaving. Debts followed, and creditors had her seized. Most of the crew went home. The captain and a few sailors were held on board for about eleven months, next to a cargo their own lawyers called extremely hazardous.

Ammonium nitrate is a white salt. Farms use it as fertilizer. Mines use it to make explosives. Under the dangerous goods rules it is an oxidizer, class 5.1, and the Rhosus bill of lading said exactly that. This cargo was high-density ammonium nitrate, with 34.7 percent nitrogen. It was packed in big bags of about one tonne each. Its danger comes down to three words: heat, confinement and contamination. In a fire, it melts and gives off toxic fumes. Britain's Health and Safety Executive warns that under heat and confinement, or a severe shock, it can detonate. Contamination, especially with organic material, makes that much more likely. This is not theory. In 2013, a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, caught fire, and its ammonium nitrate exploded. Fifteen people died. The US Chemical Safety Board pointed to inadequate storage and handling. Remember those three words. Hangar 12 would end up with all of them.

In June 2014, a Beirut judge for urgent matters ordered the cargo taken off the ship and stored in an appropriate place. In October, it was moved into Hangar 12, beside the port's grain silos. The nearest homes were about 480 metres away. In 2015, an expert took samples. Her report found around 1,900 of the big bags torn. And the ammonium nitrate was not alone. According to Human Rights Watch, the same hangar held kerosene, hydrochloric acid, 23 tonnes of fireworks and rolls of detonating cord. For anyone who works with dangerous goods, that list is alarming. An oxidizer, stored with fuel and fireworks, in torn bags, in a closed building. Heat, confinement, contamination: all in one room. By 2020, one of the hangar's doors had been pushed out of its frame. There was a hole about fifty centimetres wide in a wall. And there were no guards.

Almost from the start, people in the system knew. In 2014, Lebanon's General Security warned of several tonnes of a very dangerous substance. Customs proposed handing the cargo to the army, or shipping it out, to avoid any potential disaster. Between December 2014 and December 2017, customs wrote at least six letters to the judge for urgent matters. The options were always the same: export it again, sell it to a Lebanese explosives company, or give it to the army. The letters came back on questions of procedure and jurisdiction. In 2016, the army replied that it did not need the material. Letters from the public works ministry followed. They focused on cost, not on the risk of an explosion. In February 2018, the Rhosus sank in the port, near the breakwater. Her wreck was later sold for 700,000 Lebanese pounds, about 466 US dollars. The cargo she brought stayed in Hangar 12. Nobody was ignoring the cargo. Everyone was writing about it. The problem was that every letter asked someone else to act.

In late 2019, a State Security officer wrote a memo about the cargo. In January 2020, an investigation began. In May, State Security officers inspected Hangar 12. They found the broken door, the hole in the wall and no guards. On June 1st, the public prosecutor ordered the port to post guards, appoint a warehouse keeper and repair the doors and the wall. On July 20th, State Security sent a report to President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Hassan Diab. A senior security official later told Reuters: "I warned them that this could destroy Beirut if it exploded." The report was passed on to two ministries. One of them stamped it as received on August 4th. On the afternoon of August 4th, according to Human Rights Watch, workers welded doors at the hangar. Whether that work started the fire has never been officially established.

At 5:54 in the evening, the first video of smoke from Hangar 12 was posted online. The fire crew arrived a few minutes later. By 5:59, videos captured a crackling sound, like fireworks. Above the port, the smoke turned orange-brown. Chemists recognised the colour: nitrogen dioxide, a sign that nitrate was breaking down in the fire. At 6:08, the ammonium nitrate detonated. A white dome of condensed water vapour raced outward with the shock wave. Seismographs registered an event of about magnitude 3.3 to 3.5. Infrasound stations picked it up more than six thousand kilometres away. Scientists estimate its force at roughly half a kiloton to about one kiloton of TNT. How much of the cargo actually exploded is still uncertain. An FBI report put it at around 552 tonnes. Other estimates go higher, up to most of the cargo. Where the rest went has never been officially explained. The grain silos beside the hangar were shattered, but part of them stayed standing. News reports said they shielded part of the city from the blast.

More than two hundred people were killed. The count still differs between sources: Human Rights Watch recorded 218, and later reports give higher numbers. About 6,500 to 7,000 people were injured. Around 300,000 lost their homes, at least for a time. Among the dead were all ten members of the fire crew that answered the call. Behind every number is a family still waiting for answers. Within three kilometres, about 77,000 apartments in 10,000 buildings were damaged. Three hospitals stopped working. About 160 schools were affected. The World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations put physical damage at 3.8 to 4.6 billion US dollars. The port was the country's main gateway: more than 70 percent of Lebanon's imports came through it. That day, the silos held about 15,000 tonnes of grain. And Lebanon was already deep in a severe economic crisis, in the middle of a pandemic.

Here is the uncomfortable part. Six years later, there is still no official final report on what started the fire. Lebanon's investigation has been frozen, restarted and challenged for years. The first judge was removed. His successor, Judge Tarek Bitar, was blocked by lawsuits and even charged by the country's top prosecutor. In March 2026, he closed his investigation, with about 70 people implicated. No one has stood trial. But you do not need a final report to see the chain. A ship with a poor record, carrying a hazardous cargo bound for another country. A court order to unload it, and no one clearly in charge of what came next. A warehouse where an oxidizer sat with fuel and fireworks, in torn bags, behind a broken door. Years of letters that asked for a decision and got a procedure. And at the end, repair work at a hangar full of ammonium nitrate. Dangerous goods are meant to move: loaded, shipped, delivered, used. In Beirut, this cargo stopped moving. And a hazard that nobody owns becomes everyone's risk.

After Beirut, other countries looked at their own stockpiles. In Chennai, India, about 740 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, seized by customs in 2015, were auctioned and moved out within a week. In Newcastle, Australia, people asked hard questions about a plant holding thousands of tonnes close to the city. In 2021, a UN and OECD seminar on ammonium nitrate storage drew participants from 48 countries. Its conclusion was blunt: the rules already existed. What they needed was stronger implementation. At sea, the IMDG Code, the rulebook for dangerous goods on ships, has been mandatory since 2004. In ports, the main global guidance is an IMO circular from 2007, and it is only a recommendation. Some families found partial answers abroad. In 2023, the UK High Court held Savaro, the British company through which the cargo was ordered, liable to victims who sued there. The company was later wound up, unable to pay. Parts of the damaged silos collapsed in 2022, after the grain left inside caught fire. What remains has been listed as heritage. A memorial, in concrete.

The ammonium nitrate in Hangar 12 was never a secret. It was documented, sampled and discussed for almost seven years. What it never had was someone willing to move it. In dangerous goods, paperwork does not make a cargo safe. Moving it does. This is Hazard Manifest. If you want to understand the dangerous side of global trade, subscribe.