Officials reported they believe 2,750 tons of fertilizer has caused the deadly explosion in Beirut after a Russian businessman abandoned his cargo ship due to an unscheduled stop.
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According to the New York Post, the warehouse explosion killed at least 100 and left 300,000 homeless due to ammonium nitrate fertilizer that was stored in the cargo ship since 2014. The cargo ship called the MV Rhosus is owned by Russian national Igor Grechuskin, who currently lives in Cyprus. After it traveled from Georgia to Mozambique in 2013, the ship experienced some malfunctions and made an unscheduled stop in Beirut. Years before the explosion, officials have issued a warning about the dangers of storing ammonium nitrate and could have disastrous consequences.
Grechuskin abandoned the ship then declared bankruptcy so he could leave it in Lebanon along with leaving the crew stranded for months. Due to this error, it did not give them enough time to offload the ammonium nitrate and had to store it in various warehouses for 6 years.
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As of now, there are no reports of the conditions the ammonium nitrate was under and why it was abandoned for years. A fire initially started in one of the warehouses, titled “9” and then spread to warehouse 12 where it contained the deadly chemical.