Hidden behind the tragedy of the deadly explosion earlier this month in the port of Beirut is a dark and pervasive travesty that began in 2013 and explains how the 2,750 tons of explosive ammonium nitrate ended up in a portside warehouse.
This backstory sheds light on the deeper problem of maritime abandonment of ships, seafarers, and cargo, and the factors that make it so easy for vessel owners and operators to walk away from their responsibilities, usually with impunity, often with life-or-death consequences for the crew that gets left behind.
Lebanese investigators are now fairly certain of the proximate cause of the explosion: Fireworks stored nearby ignited the flammable dunes of the powdery chemical that was housed in Hangar 12, triggering a massive shock wave that leveled buildings and shattered windows throughout the city. Killing at least 190 people, injuring more than 6,500, and leaving some 300,000 others homeless, the blast was so powerful that it created seismic waves equivalent to a magnitude 3.3 earthquake, and was reportedly heard and felt in Cyprus, nearly 150 miles across the eastern Mediterranean.
But the deeper causes of this explosion stem from slower-moving and less dramatic factors: corporate negligence and political corruption, anemic enforcement by shady flag registries that are supposed to hold shipowners accountable, tightened immigration controls that routinely trap stranded crews on decrepit ships, lax rules and a maritime bureaucracy designed more to protect anonymity and secrecy of ship owners than to enable oversight and transparency of the industry.
Food, water, oil, said Ben Bailey, director of advocacy for the Mission to Seafarers, a mariners’ advocacy group. It’s difficult for us to get supplies to these men. He added that the problem of abandonment has become more severe during the Covid-19 pandemic, as global maritime commerce has ground to a halt. In June, the UN called upon maritime governments to allow hundreds of thousands of seafarers stranded in ports due to Covid-19 travel restrictions to safely change over to other ships or return to their home countries.
The ITF has been receiving e-mails from hundreds of seafarers daily, expressing their concern about contracts being extended under duress, said Stephen Cotton, general secretary of the ITF. In May, Guy Platten, general secretary of the International Chamber of Shipping, described the abandonment of ships and seafarers as a ticking time bomb.