‘Everything is on fire again’: Massive blaze tears through Beirut port, terrifying traumatised citizens

A huge fire has ripped through Beirut’s port, the site of last month’s deadly explosion, sparking panic among traumatised citizens who feared more destruction. 

Plumes of toxic black smoke towered above the city, as flames raged through sections of the port below.

The Lebanese army said that  “warehouses of oil and tyres” in the port’s Free Zone had caught fire as they joined efforts to extinguish the blaze. 

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) later said that one of the burned hangars housed thousands of ICRC food parcels and half a million litres of cooking oil, that were likely to have been destroyed, potentially impeding their humanitarian operations. 

Military helicopters swooped over the area dropping water on the flames while over 100 firefighters, civil defence members, and soldiers battled to control the fire. 

Terrified citizens, including children, in surrounding areas began getting in their cars, saying they would leave the capital.

“They told us the port was secured, that the clean-up operations were going well. They lied again,” said Emily, 72, whose home is located just a few hundred metres from the port. The building housing her flat partially collapsed during the 4 August explosion. She had returned on Thursday to collect more of her belongings.

“I was lucky I wasn’t in my flat when the blast hit, otherwise I would have died. And now I come back and everything is on fire again,” she added. 

Earlier in the afternoon, port employees were filmed running from the area shouting “everyone, go, it might explode!”

Michel El-Murr, head of the fire department rescue team, told The Independent he believed the fire may have been caused by sparks from saws workers were using to cut through metal debris in the port during the ongoing clean-up operation. 

A military source, however, said it appeared to have started when cooking oil caught fire and spread to stores of tyres. “We still do not know exactly what is inside the warehouse on fire, we cannot rule out explosive materials – but we think it is unlikely,” Mr El Murr said. 

Port director, Bassem Kaissi, told Al-Jazeera English that the fire had not been detected initially as the area was “private”, had no security forces present, and no fire extinguishers or alarms as they had been destroyed in the blast. 

Fabrizo Carboni, the ICRC’s director for the Near and Middle East, said that the organisation had been storing thousands of parcels of food and half a million litres of cooking oil there. 

“The extent of the damage still remains to be established,” he wrote on Twitter. “Our humanitarian operation risks to be seriously disrupted.”

 The Lebanese capital was devastated last month after the largest non-nuclear explosion in modern history ripped through the city, killing at least 190 people, wounding thousands more, and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. 

The most likely cause of the blast was the detonation of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, which had been left to languish at Beirut’s port for six years despite authorities being aware of the huge risk it posed.  

The entire cabinet was forced to resign after it was revealed that the president, the government, the security forces and port officials knew of the dangerous stockpile at the port but apparently did nothing about it. 

Another four tonnes of ammonium nitrate – a chemical used in fertilisers and explosives – were later found at the entrance to the port after the explosion. 

Thursday’s blaze only ignited fears that the port area and surrounding neighbourhoods are not safe. Lebanon’s top air quality expert Najat Saliba also warned that the smoke was “very poisonous” and urged the young and elderly to leave Beirut. 

It also enflamed distrust in the government, as people speculated on social media whether someone deliberately set the port on fire to “cover up evidence”. 

“This is the second fire since the blast, it can’t be a coincidence,” said Sarah, 25, who lives near to the port.

Business owners and employers meanwhile said that the blaze was yet another blow to their efforts to try to restore confidence in the areas near the port. 

One waiter, sitting in a partially destroyed restaurant in a street adjacent to the port, said people could not take much more. 

“First we had the financial collapse, then the coronavirus lockdowns, then the blast which destroyed this street and most of the buildings,” he said, with smoke billowing in the sky above him. 

“Now we have more fire. How much more can we survive?”