Beirut blast: Initial probe points to negligence in storage of ammonium nitrate

-- Officials say 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate was stored

-- Committees had reviewed matter but no action taken

-- Lebanese Customs previously asked for removal of material

Initial investigations into the Beirut port blast indicate years of inaction and negligence over the storage of highly explosive material caused the explosion that killed more than 100 people, an official source familiar with the findings said.

The prime minister and presidency have said that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, used in fertilisers and bombs, had been stored for six years at the port without safety measures.

"It is negligence," the official source told Reuters, adding that the issue on storing the material safely had come before several committees and judges and "nothing was done" to order the material be removed or disposed of.

The source said a fire had started at port warehouse 9 on Tuesday and spread to warehouse 12, where the ammonium nitrate was stored.

Another source close to a port employee said a team that inspected the material six months ago warned it could "blow up all of Beirut" if not removed.

Tuesday's explosion was the most powerful ever suffered by Beirut, a city still scarred by civil war three decades ago and reeling from a deep financial crisis rooted in decades of corruption and economic mismanagement.

The head of Beirut port and the head of customs both said on Wednesday that several letters were sent to the judiciary asking for the dangerous material be removed, but no action was taken.

Port General Manager Hassan Koraytem told OTV the material had been put in a warehouse on a court order, adding that they knew then the material was dangerous but "not to this degree".

"We requested that it be re-exported but that did not happen. We leave it to the experts and those concerned to determine why," Badri Daher, director general of Lebanese Customs, told broadcaster LBCI.

Two documents seen by Reuters showed Lebanese Customs had asked the judiciary in 2016 and 2017 to request that the "concerned maritime agency" re-export or approve the sale of the ammonium nitrate, which had been removed from cargo vessel Rhosus and deposited in warehouse 12, to ensure port safety.

One document cited similar requests in 2014 and 2015.

Former Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, whose father and also a former premier was killed in a large truck bomb attack in 2015 in the capital, called for a foreign role in investigating the blast that "once again killed the heart of Beirut".

"We ask the government ... for a transparent judicial and security investigation without compromise, denial or circumventing the truth," he said in a statement.

Shiparrested.com, an industry network dealing with legal cases, said in a 2015 report that the Rhosus, sailing under a Moldovan flag, docked in Beirut in September 2013 when it had technical problems while sailing from Georgia to Mozambique with 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate.

It said that, upon inspection, the vessel was forbidden from sailing and shortly afterwards was abandoned by its owners, leading to various creditors coming forward with legal claims.

"Owing to the risks associated with retaining the ammonium nitrate on board the vessel, the port authorities discharged the cargo onto the port's warehouses," it added.

What is ammonium nitrate and why is it dangerous?

Below are details of ammonium nitrate and expert comment:

-- Ammonium nitrate is an industrial chemical commonly used in fertilisers and as an explosive for quarrying and mining. It is an oxidiser considered relatively safe if uncontaminated and stored properly. But it is extremely dangerous if contaminated, mixed with fuel or stored unsafely.

-- A large quantity of ammonium nitrate exposed to intense heat can trigger an explosion. Storing the chemical near large fuel tanks, in bulk in large quantities and in a poorly-ventilated facility could cause a massive blast. The larger the quantity, the more risk it will detonate.

"On a scale, this explosion is scaled down from a nuclear bomb rather than up from a conventional bomb," said Roland Alford, managing director of Alford Technologies, a British company that specialises in disposal of explosive ordnance. "This is probably up there among the biggest non-nuclear explosions of all time."

-- Experts have noted the colour of the smoke and "mushroom cloud" seen in footage of Tuesday's blast as characteristic of ammonium nitrate explosions.

"Video footage of the incident show initial white-grey smoke followed by an explosion that released a large cloud of red-brown smoke and a large white 'mushroom cloud'. These indicate that the gasses released are white ammonium nitrate fumes, toxic, red/brown nitrous oxide and water," said Stewart Walker from the school of Forensic, Environmental and Analytical Chemistry at Flinders University.

"If you make ammonium nitrate explosive, you shouldn't get that brown plume. That tells me the oxygen balance was not correct - so it wasn't mixed as an explosive," he said. "The Beirut blast looks like an accident, unless it was arson."

PAST ACCIDENTS

Some of the world's deadliest industrial accidents were caused by ammonium nitrate explosions:

-- In 1921, an explosion of ammonium sulphate and nitrate fertiliser at the Oppau plant in Germany killed 565 people.

-- In 1947, a fire detonated around 2,300 tonnes of the chemical aboard a vessel in the US port of Texas City, causing a tidal wave. At least 567 people were killed and more than 5,000 injured.

-- In Toulouse, France in 2001, an explosion at an ammonium nitrate depot killed 31 and injured 2,500.

-- Ammonium nitrate stored at a Texas fertiliser plant detonated in an explosion that killed 14 and injured about 200 in 2013.

-- In 2015, explosions at a warehouse storing ammonium nitrate and other chemicals in the Chinese port of Tianjin killed at least 116 people.

-- Andrea Sella, professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, said of the Beirut blast: "The idea that such a quantity would have been left unattended for six years beggars belief, and was an accident waiting to happen."

USE IN BOMBINGS

Ammonium nitrate can be mixed with other substances to make a bomb. It was used in Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombings in London in the 1990s, the 1995 explosion that blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, and the 2002 blasts in Bali nightclubs in which more than 200 died. Many of the homemade bombs that were used against US troops in Afghanistan contained ammonium nitrate.