LETTER FROM BEIRUT
“If it hadn’t been for the silos, I wouldn’t be here today to talk to you”, says, bluntly, Paul Najjar. On August 4, 2020, the imposing grain silos at the port of Beirut absorbed part of the explosion caused by the explosion of a stockpile of ammonium nitrate, protecting the western part of the Lebanese capital, while the neighborhoods of east were devastated, 215 people killed and 6,500 injured. The engineer and his wife miraculously escaped, but their three-year-old daughter did not survive. The couple, like all the families of the victims, would like these silos to be erected as a place of memory.
“These silos have become the visual imprint of the Lebanese and of those who have lost loved ones, a very strong symbol, explains Paul Najjar. To destroy them and begin to rebuild would be to turn the page when the investigation is not over and we have not even begun to grieve. We want truth and justice and when we get them, what must remain is a place of memory, not a port rebuilt on the blood of the victims. »
In early February, the government instructed a ministerial committee to prepare a report on the fate of the grain silos. The Minister of Economy, Amine Salam, in charge of the file, pleaded for their demolition, arguing the danger of the structure, partially destroyed. In Lebanese daily life Al Joumhouria, on February 9, he said a tender would be issued to demolish the silos and clear the site. The consulting company Khatib & Alami, he said, was commissioned to conduct a study to determine the cost and method.
“Instead of arresting the criminals, they kill the witness”
In response, the Beirut Urban Declaration, an initiative launched in August 2020 with the participation of the order of architects and engineers to rehabilitate the neighborhoods of Beirut destroyed in the explosion, challenged the government in a petition, arguing that the preservation silos, “an integral part of the collective memory of the city of Beirut and a witness to the crime of the century”is technically possible. “Instead of arresting the criminals, they kill the witness”denounced the families of the victims of the explosion during a demonstration at the foot of the silos on February 20.
The government and the Beirut Urban Declaration do not draw the same conclusions from the study carried out by the Swiss engineering company Amann Engineering. Equipped with a 3D laser scanner, the French engineer Emmanuel Durand carried out several surveys of the site. In a report submitted in May 2021 to the Lebanese government, he recommended the destruction of the northern part of the silos, which was heavily damaged at its base, pointing to a risk of collapse given its steep inclination. A proposes elements of the southern block, then “geometrically stable”the report indicates that “the decision to keep them or remove them should be the subject of a separate discussion, which takes into account memory considerations”.
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