Fires are caused by grain fermentation and threaten the stability of structures
July 22 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Government of Lebanon has ordered the firefighters and Civil Defense personnel to start cooling operations in the silos of the port of the capital, Beirut, due to a large column of smoke that has emerged in the last hours after several days of fire in its interior by the fermentation of the accumulated grain.
The Lebanese Interior Minister, Basam al-Maulawi, has requested that the operations be carried out in a way that “does not threaten the safety of people and does not pose a risk to the silos”, seriously damaged by the devastating explosion recorded. on August 4, 2020 in the port.
The order has come shortly after the Minister of the Economy, Amin Salam, warned that the silos are at risk of collapsing due to these fires inside them, unleashed in early July and that until now they have not been able to be extinguished, according to picked up by the Lebanese news portal Naharnet.
Salam explained that “there have been fires like these before and there will continue to be as long as the grain continues to ferment inside,” before stressing that the situation is “complicated” by the possibility that the structure may suffer irreparable damage.
These fires have caused concern at a time when the date of the second anniversary of the explosion of hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate stored in the port is approaching, which left more than 200 dead and enormous material damage in the area and in the surroundings.
The Government decided in April to demolish the silos, although the decision was suspended due to protests by the families of the victims, who argue that they could contain useful evidence in the ongoing investigation, marked by paralysis and political and judicial obstacles.
The country has been mired in a crisis for years, a situation deepened by the explosion in Beirut, the coronavirus pandemic and the situation at the political level, with tensions that have caused months of political paralysis.
In addition, the Lebanese pound has been collapsing in recent months, in a crisis that led the World Bank to state in June 2021 that the latter is one of the worst recorded globally since the mid-19th century, with a drastic drop in close to 40 percent of GDP per capita since 2018.
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