[MAIL] Lebanon has placed every official responsible for the security of Beirut's port for the last six years under house arrest as it investigates a massive explosion which has devastated the city. The country's political leaders vowed those responsible for the tragedy would 'pay the price', but customs officials pointed the finger of blame back at them - saying they were repeatedly warned of the danger but failed to act.
It came as an astonishing photo emerged, purporting to show the dock's Warehouse 12 filled with ammonium nitrate - with the highly explosive chemical stored in simple construction sacks with no other protection in place.
The dangerous load is understood to have been abandoned by Russian businessman Igor Grechushkin in September 2013 before eventually being transferred to the port where it remained for six years.
A ship carrying the load was detained en route from Batumi, in the ex-Soviet republic Georgia, to Mozambique, and never recovered.
On Tuesday evening a fire that started in Warehouse 9 ignited 2,750 tons of the chemical - sparking an explosion with three kilotons of force, equivalent to a fifth the size of the Hiroshima nuclear blast.
| Related: Who is Igor Grechushkin, how did his abandoned ship Rhosus become a ticking time bomb? |