The ramifications of the complete destruction of Lebanon's only major seaport are dire.
I just checked and Lebanon, despite its long coastline and many historic ports, has only one other modern port: Tripoli.
The Beirut port was a large relatively modern port with 100+ Ton cranes for unloading modern ships.
Starvation is imminent
Lebanon imports 85% of its food !!!.
Its grain and other food stocks and warehouses at the Beirut port were destroyed.
It now has no way of importing sufficient food by sea to feed its population of 6 million people.
It is a mountainous country with a small coastal plain, surrounded by Syria (a complete basket case in a long running civil war) with a small southern border with Israel, who it has refused to make peace with (and hosts the Hezbollah terrorist group that is always attacking Israel).
It is impossible to transport goods safely through Syria and has been for many years. Turkey has been shipping goods to Israel and then on to the Gulf States because land routes via Syria were disrupted by the civil war.
Corona has halved global air-freight capacity and dramatically increased prices. It is way too expensive to import food (which is bulky and heavy) by air.
Unless it quickly makes peace with Israel there is no physical way for it to import sufficient food to keep its population alive.
This is terrible. There’s already so much stress in the region and then to add to it this devastation and potential suffering. My heart goes out to the people of Lebanon in their time of morning and loss.
I am certain the whole world is watching... I only hope that they do more than that. Action is required on all sides to make peace a priority.
Didnt know that lebanon is (still) at war with Israel...
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Lebanon and Israel have been in an official state of war since 1948.
Israel was attacked by Hezbollah from Lebanon just last week and responded with fire.
It is very much an active military conflict, just on simmer at the moment.
Indeed it appears the explosion may have been caused by Hezbollah (or someone else) converting the ammonium nitrate to explosives or rocket fuel. See @brianoflondon's comment on my related post