About 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate, an amount equivalent to that which is at the origin of the deadly and devastating explosion in Beirut, were stored Thursday evening in a transit zone of the port of Dakar, according to the Senegalese authorities.
Shortly before, some 3,050 tonnes of this product, often used as agricultural fertilizer, had been unloaded in Dakar, the management of the autonomous port of the Senegalese capital, a public institution, said in a statement, without specifying their date of arrival. The port of Dakar borders the historic center of the capital whose agglomeration has more than three million inhabitants.
These stocks were to be transported to Mali, their final destination. Problem: the borders of Mali, a landlocked country neighboring Senegal, have been closed since the military coup that overthrew President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta last Tuesday.
So the Senegalese authorities had to find an urgent solution. Since the start of the weekend, ammonium nitrate has been transported in thirty-ton trucks to Mali, we learn from RFI. About a hundred vehicles will be needed to remove all of the stocks. Vehicles escorted by the police and which are authorized to cross the Malian border, assure the port authorities to RFI.
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The owner of the products had initially proposed that they be temporarily stored on land belonging to him in Diamniadio, a new town under development about thirty kilometers from Dakar. But the Ministry of the Environment, to which a request was submitted, " did not accept it because all the conditions are not met, " one of its officials, Baba Dramé, told AFP on Thursday, referring to in particular “ the absence of an impact study ”. “ We have asked the owner to make arrangements so that the product can be shipped outside Senegal, ” he added.
President Macky Sall for his part demanded last Wednesday, in the Council of Ministers, a " national plan of census (and) audit of security of deposits of dangerous chemicals ", according to a press release from the presidency. In 1992, the explosion in Dakar of a tanker truck carrying liquid ammonia left 107 dead and 300 injured. The autonomous port of Dakar has " taken all the necessary measures to be in order to avoid such disasters ", according to its management.
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On August 4, a gigantic explosion at the port of Beirut left at least 181 dead, more than 6,500 injured and devastated entire swathes of the Lebanese capital. It was caused by a fire in a warehouse where, according to the authorities, 2750 tons of ammonium nitrate had been stored for six years, " without precautionary measures " by the admission of the resigning Prime Minister Hassan Diab.
