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Description
On November 21, 2013, the Moldovan ship the MV Rhosus entered the port of Beirut in Lebanon with 2,750 tonnes, or 3,030 short tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive chemical compound that is commonly used to make fertilizer. The ship had left from Mozambique on September 27, and after entering Beirut it was forced to stay due to being in poor condition. Nobody realized it at the time, but it would ultimately bring about the city's destruction, even after it sank. The company that owned the ship soon went bankrupt, and nobody was interested in the Rhosus so it laid abandoned, for about 4 months, until on February 4, 2014 when the ship was seized by port state control. However though when the ship entered the port it had 10 crew members on it, 8 Ukrainians and 2 Russians, and while 5 of the Ukrainians were repatriated, the other 4 crew members stayed with the ship, which I guess means it wasn't entirely abandoned. However this would be a problem since provisions on the boat soon ran out and the crew could not leave due to immigration issues. However they were allowed to return home, as they had been on the boat for about a year at that point. At an unknown point in 2014, although i'm guessing it was after the crew went home, the cargo was ordered to be moved, and was moved to the port's warehouse 12. And as stated earlier, the ship sank in February 2018. Whether or not the wreck is still there is unknown, however it was likely destroyed by what happened on August 4, 2020. This day started off like most do, however at around 2:45 PM UTC (all times stated are in UTC), a fire broke out in warehouse 12, which in addition to all of the ammonium nitrate that was moved from the ship, it also contained lots of grain as well as fireworks. At 2:55 a team of firefighters was dispatched who reported hearing a strange sound coming from the burning contents of the warehouse. Only 12 minutes later, at 3:07 PM it became apparent what that sound was: a first explosion happened, likely being the fireworks, and was said to have strength equivalent to around 1.5 - 2.5 tons of TNT. However only a little over 30 seconds later a second, much larger blast occured, devestating the city. This explosion was said to have strength equivalent to around 0.5 and 1.1 kilotons of TNT, making it one of the largest man made non nuclear explosions in history. It was felt over 240 kilometers, or 150 miles away, in northern Israel and Cyprus. The shock waves were transmitted into the ground, however the USA recorded the event as a local magnitude 3.3 earthquake, and Jordan as a local magnitude 4.5 earthquake. It was ultimately found that the source of ignition was a spark generated from some workmen welding a door. In the end, 218 people died and over 7,000 were injured. 300,000 were also displaced. Unfortunately though, especially compared to other similar disasters I will cover at later dates, the recovery for Lebanon has not been easy. Of course recovering from an explosion that destroys a city is always hard, but it was especially hard for Lebanon due to the country's economic instability. Even to this day, 3 years on, the city is still very much so struggling to recover.

2020 Beirut explosion - Wikipedia

Description
On November 21, 2013, the Moldovan ship the MV Rhosus entered the port of Beirut in Lebanon with 2,750 tonnes, or 3,030 short tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive chemical compound that is commonly used to make fertilizer. The ship had left from Mozambique on September 27, and after entering Beirut it was forced to stay due to being in poor condition. Nobody realized it at the time, but it would ultimately bring about the city's destruction, even after it sank. The company that owned the ship soon went bankrupt, and nobody was interested in the Rhosus so it laid abandoned, for about 4 months, until on February 4, 2014 when the ship was seized by port state control. However though when the ship entered the port it had 10 crew members on it, 8 Ukrainians and 2 Russians, and while 5 of the Ukrainians were repatriated, the other 4 crew members stayed with the ship, which I guess means it wasn't entirely abandoned. However this would be a problem since provisions on the boat soon ran out and the crew could not leave due to immigration issues. However they were allowed to return home, as they had been on the boat for about a year at that point. At an unknown point in 2014, although i'm guessing it was after the crew went home, the cargo was ordered to be moved, and was moved to the port's warehouse 12. And as stated earlier, the ship sank in February 2018. Whether or not the wreck is still there is unknown, however it was likely destroyed by what happened on August 4, 2020. This day started off like most do, however at around 2:45 PM UTC (all times stated are in UTC), a fire broke out in warehouse 12, which in addition to all of the ammonium nitrate that was moved from the ship, it also contained lots of grain as well as fireworks. At 2:55 a team of firefighters was dispatched who reported hearing a strange sound coming from the burning contents of the warehouse. Only 12 minutes later, at 3:07 PM it became apparent what that sound was: a first explosion happened, likely being the fireworks, and was said to have strength equivalent to around 1.5 - 2.5 tons of TNT. However only a little over 30 seconds later a second, much larger blast occured, devestating the city. This explosion was said to have strength equivalent to around 0.5 and 1.1 kilotons of TNT, making it one of the largest man made non nuclear explosions in history. It was felt over 240 kilometers, or 150 miles away, in northern Israel and Cyprus. The shock waves were transmitted into the ground, however the USA recorded the event as a local magnitude 3.3 earthquake, and Jordan as a local magnitude 4.5 earthquake. It was ultimately found that the source of ignition was a spark generated from some workmen welding a door. In the end, 218 people died and over 7,000 were injured. 300,000 were also displaced. Unfortunately though, especially compared to other similar disasters I will cover at later dates, the recovery for Lebanon has not been easy. Of course recovering from an explosion that destroys a city is always hard, but it was especially hard for Lebanon due to the country's economic instability. Even to this day, 3 years on, the city is still very much so struggling to recover.

2020 Beirut explosion - Wikipedia