What happens when business tycoons abandon their giant cargo ships

Covid-19 has wrought havoc everywhere, but in the nominally regulated shipping industry it's fueling a worrying practice: the abandonment of ships, cargo and seafarers with no way to get home

From the deck of their tanker, Captain Samig Nabiyev and his crew could see the smoke and fire rising over the Port of Beirut, 900 meters away. When the flaming warehouse exploded, the force of the blast knocked Nabiyev flat on his back.

“I thought I was finished,” said the 43-year-old Nabiyev, who’s worked on ships for almost 20 years. “We were all afraid for our lives.”

Nabiyev and the 11 other crew members weren’t supposed to be in Beirut on Aug. 4, the day of the disaster that killed around 200 people and wounded more than 6,000. Like the tons of