Although damaged, they still stood in the center of the port of Beirut, remnants of the deadly explosions of August 4, 2020. But since Sunday July 30, the grain silos of the Lebanese capital, symbols of a drama that has done more of 200 dead and more than 6,500 injured, partly collapsed following a fire lasting several weeks which finished weakening the tanks.
As a sad reminder, it was also a fire in a warehouse – housing hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate stored without precautions – which had caused the explosions in 2020.
"We are not done with the disasters in Beirut yet, this collapse had to happen sooner or later," laments Karina Sukar, architect and survivor of the 2020 explosions.
The fire - which started in early July in the most damaged part of the silos - was caused by a combination of fermentation of remaining grain stocks and high temperatures in the Lebanese capital, the minister said in mid-July. Lebanese Economy, Amin Salam.
The latter had also specified that the attempts - by land, sea or air - to put an end to the fire posed a greater risk of collapse of the silos than the fire itself.
Some parts of the reservoirs currently still contain some 3,000 tons of wheat and other grains that could not be removed, according to authorities.
This is happening just days before the 2-year anniversary of the Beirut blast and after a fire burned there continuously for 3 weeks.
Words fail.
pic.twitter.com/IW0Z3lRMfi
— Timour Azhari (@timourazhari) July 31, 2022
"It's shocking and sad to see this, we expected it (this collapse, editor's note) because the fire had been going on for weeks", reacts Paul Naggear, who lost Alexandra, his only daughter then 3 years old , in tragedy two years ago.
“This fire is, as usual, a symbol of the systematic bankruptcy of the Lebanese State which never manages to act when necessary, as was already the case on August 4, 2020. These silos remain a symbol very important to our fight for justice.”
“The visual imprint for all of what this explosion was”
The reservoirs of the port of Beirut have, in fact, been the subject of a struggle for several months between the families of victims and the Lebanese government.
The Council of Ministers had first decided, on March 16, to validate the destruction of the silos, based on the green light given to this effect by Judge Tarek Bitar – in charge of the investigation into the explosions at the port of Beirut. - and on a study by Swiss experts that recommended the partial destruction of the reservoirs - those that finally collapsed on Sunday.
But the situation reversed on March 18: the Minister of Culture, Mohammad Mortada, classified the site of the silos among the historical monuments, provoking a government cacophony.
He justifies this choice in a press release by “the need to preserve (them) and to consider them as part of a human heritage, since they are the emblem of a disaster-stricken city, but also given the need to preserve this image for future generations.”
>> Explosions at the port of Beirut: threatened with demolition, the silos "must serve the memory"
Among the families of the victims, many of them are also opposed to the disappearance of the grain silos, as Paul Naggear recalls: “At the start of our fight, we made demands not to touch the site integrity.
Then it became a media campaign to preserve those silos.
And if the state ever decides to send bulldozers to bring them down, we will be there to stop it.”
A position also shared by Waldemar Faddoul, who survived the explosions in 2020. Interviewed by France 24 last March, this Franco-Lebanese architect said he was “100% against the demolition of the building, whatever the pretext, structural or not , because the explosion of August 4 is a unifying element, in its drama and in its magnitude, and of convergence in our history and our identity.”
For several families of victims, the grain tanks were both a shield for the western part of Beirut - they absorbed part of the shock wave generated by the explosion of the warehouse which contained nitrate of ammonium – and a memorial symbol for the Lebanese.
“The silos have become the visual imprint for everyone of what this explosion was like, explains Paul Naggear.
It is a symbol to remember and to never forget the fight for justice, which has only just begun.”
>> Explosions in Beirut: after the suspension of Judge Bitar, the bitterness of the relatives of victims
Maintaining these silos – even if fragile – on their foundations indeed amounts for several families to leaving visible the scars of a tragedy, while the judicial investigation into the explosions has been dragging on for months.
Judge Bitar, faced with several obstacles to the pursuit of his work, was again forced to suspend his investigations last November, for the third time since his appointment in February 2021. Since then, the investigation slowed down by several political maneuvers is currently still suspended.
Memory torn by the future of silos
Still, the preservation of the silos, despite all that they represent, is not unanimous among the families of victims.
Karina Sukar lost her best friend in the explosions in 2020 - "it was like my sister" - as well as her apartment, blown away by the shock wave.
She wants these grain tanks to disappear from the Beirut landscape.
“I am one of the big losers on a human and material level, but I am against the preservation of these silos,” she explains.
“I can't see them anymore.
I don't like rubbing the knife in the wound and prefer that it heals to move forward.
By destroying them, we would not destroy a memory.
It is not the silos that will bring back the dead.”
Paul Naggear is also on a similar line.
“We find these silos horrible and ideally, we would no longer want to see them at all”, he affirms, before qualifying: “Except that we (some of the families of victims, editor’s note) find that it is more important today to keep this crime still unpunished clearly visible and well anchored in the life of every Beiruti.”
The architect, for her part, says she is in favor of the construction of a monument “which would better represent the victims” instead of the silos.
Several projects are currently on the table regarding the future of the current site.
According to the Middle East Eye media, “once the destruction of the silos is finished”, the Lebanese executive could build a new grain storage structure, but not in the same place as at present.
Another hypothesis would be to distribute these grain tanks over three sites – in Beirut, Zahrani (in the South) and Tripoli (in the North).
Finally, a monument for the victims could see the light of day, but in a location other than the current silos.
"The first thing, before having a memorial, would be for people to obtain justice in this case (the investigation into the 2020 explosions, editor's note)", specifies Karina Sukar, before concluding: "And if the people in power want to rebuild the part of the port where the current silos are, then it will take a place of memory that is well done to, at least, symbolically do justice to all the Lebanese.”
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