Two weeks before the partial collapse, a fire broke out in the silos after grain stored there ignited, officials said, as a result of fermentation processes favored by the summer heat. According to Mikati, about 3,000 tons of wheat and corn were still stored in the towers, but according to official information they could not be removed because that would have accelerated the collapse.
demolition interrupted
In April, the Lebanese government ordered the remains of the silo to be demolished. However, work has come to a halt – among other things because relatives of those who died in the August 2020 blast called for the ruins to be preserved as a place of remembrance.
The silos at the port of Beirut had a storage capacity of over 100,000 tons before the explosion. After the accident, its 48-meter tall remains were a kind of memorial to the explosion.