The cargo ship #Rhosus brought 2,750 bags of ammonium nitrate to the port of #Beirut in 2013. I tracked what happened next. The story ends with a massive explosion — and a hidden ship. 🛰️📷 @maxar
nytimes.com/2020/08/07/wor…
nytimes.com/2020/08/07/wor…
Here's the ship in 2014 at the docks. The captain is in front of ammonium nitrate bags, which match the ones in the warehouse that blew up. Photos from @DimaSadek also show the Georgian company Rustavi Azot, listed as the shipper in documents from 2013
I tracked the ship to two locations in the port. First, at coordinates 33.904934, 35.515357. Earlier image is from September 30, 2014. The second one is from Jan 16, 2015. The open cargo bays and empty hold in the latter indicate that the cargo had been unloaded.
It was then abandoned at coordinates 33.906082, 35.518367 from 2015 to 2018.
Having the exact coords, I first used @planetlabs lower-resolution imagery to determine that it sank between Feb. 16-18, 2018. And then got a nice @maxar high-res shot from Feb. 15, shortly before it went down. Nice workflow combining different imagery providers
Stephen Wood, an imagery analyst, gave us this amazing image from 3 days later, when the ship was underwater. He took advantage of multi-spectral imagery, using a green, blue & coastal blue band combination to pull out additional details from the submerged ship
The ship sank within a short distance of where its cargo blew up on Tuesday. The ship is still there today. Lebanon’s president, Michael Aoun, said today that the investigation will also focus on how the explosive materials entered and were stored in the area. @planetlabs
