Fire in Beirut port revives trauma ahead of blast anniversary

BEIRUT, July 14 Reuters - A fire smouldering for days at Beirut port has revived painful memories of the explosion that devastated the Lebanese capital in 2020, with the government struggling to find a way to extinguish it as the second anniversary of the blast approaches.

The fire has been burning slowly in the ruins of the port’s grain silos, giving off an orange glow visible at night from neighbourhoods that were most badly damaged by the Aug. 4, 2020 chemical explosion that killed more than 215 people.

The authorities say it is the result of summer heat igniting fermenting grain left in the silos since the blast, one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions ever recorded.

The explosion was widely seen in Lebanon as a symbol of corruption and bad governance by a ruling elite that has also steered the country into a devastating economic meltdown.

Much of the port still resembles a disaster zone, symbolic of the wider failures of a Lebanese ruling elite that has allowed the economic collapse to fester for three years even as poverty has soared and state services have collapsed.

No top official has been held to account for the blast.