[2] On 4 August 2020, a large explosion, caused by improperly stored ammonium nitrate, occurred at the port, killing at least 218 people, injuring more than 7,000 and rendering 300,000 others homeless.

[3] Large sections of the port and its infrastructure were destroyed,[4] including most of Beirut's grain reserves,[5] and billions of dollars in damages were inflicted across the city.

[13] In the early 2010s, Public Works and Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi estimated that tax evasion at the port amounted to more than $1.5 billion annually.

In the aftermath of massive explosions in 2020, in an apparent industrial accident, Faysal Itani, a political analyst and deputy director of the Center for Global Policy at Georgetown University wrote that the Port, like other aspects of Lebanese society, suffered from "pervasive culture of negligence, petty corruption and blame-shifting.

[20] A 1977 article in the Middle East Economic Digest reported that "not a warehouse or piece of equipment was intact" when the port officially reopened on 15 December 1976.

[22] In 1991, Lebanese Forces that had controlled a pier at the Beirut port were ousted by Lebanese Army forces under Emile Lahoud; the seizure was part of broader efforts by President Elias Hrawi to consolidate power in the Beirut area, and coincided with the ouster of the Shi'a Amal from the Ouzai port and the predominately Druze Progressive Socialist Party from the Khalde harbor.

[13] The ammonium nitrate had arrived at the port in September 2013, on board a Russian-owned, Moldovan-flagged cargo ship called the MV Rhosus.

The incident occurred in a cooking oil warehouse and food parcels belonging to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),[35] then spread to a stock of rubber tires in the port's duty-free zone.

[36][37] Following black smoke rising above the city's skyline, panic broke out due to the fear of another explosion, and motivated people to flee the city, with the addition of the Lebanese governor Marwan Abboud asking the people of Beirut to reduce traffic to roads leading to the port, for the firefighters to act quick with putting off the fires.