The northern section of a previously damaged set of grain silos in Beirut collapsed on Tuesday after a fire had been burning slowly in the block for weeks when grain trapped inside ignited.
The silos were first damaged in August 2020 when a nearby port warehouse storing ammonium nitrate fertilizer exploded in an explosion that killed more than 200 people, injured 7,000 and destroyed 77,000 apartments.
This still from AFPTV footage taken on August 23, 2022 shows a plume of smoke rising after the new collapse of the northern part of the grain silos at the port of the Lebanese capital Beirut, which were previously partially destroyed by the explosion at the port 2020. (DYLAN COLLINS/AFPTV/AFP via Getty Images)
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Tuesday’s collapse sent a cloud of dust over the port city and brought down eight more damaged silos in the northern block of the site.
The northern part of the silo had been slowly turning over since the first explosion two years ago, but the severity of the site’s deterioration began to accelerate after it caught fire last month.
Part of the Beirut port grain silos collapsed in Beirut, Lebanon, on August 4, 2022. The further collapse of the structure came after part of the Beirut port grain silos collapsed on Sunday. (Bilal Jawich/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Tuesday’s collapse comes just weeks after a section of the silos collapsed on July 31, followed by an additional collapse on the second anniversary of the explosion on August 4.
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No one is believed to have been injured in the latest collapse as the site has long since been evacuated.
Dust rises after part of the Beirut Port grain silos collapsed in Beirut, Lebanon, on August 4, 2022. (Bilal Jawich/Xinhua via Getty Images)
In August, the United Nations said family members of victims killed in the blast “still await justice” and called for an international investigation into the deadly incident.
“This tragedy marked one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in recent memory, yet the world has done nothing to find out why it happened,” the UN human rights office said in a statement.
A general view shows the northern part of the collapsed silos at the port of Beirut on August 23, 2022 in Beirut, Lebanon. (Marwan Tahtah/Getty Images)
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The Lebanese government ordered the destruction of the remaining damaged silos in April, but the decision was suspended after the victim’s family members protested the move and argued that the silos could contain information useful for an investigation.
Others have called for the silos to remain as a memorial to those lost in the deadly 2020 blast.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Caitlin McFall is a reporter for Fox News Digital. She can be reached at [email protected] or @ctlnmcfall on Twitter.
