As long as non of the gold ingots are rusting, no damage.
But, .........
But:
One has to ponder at least some...the major effect of declaring “force majeure” is to invalidate deliveries from this particular vault...and the article says it is but one of five. OK, Fine. But an acquirer of physical of gold via futures contract, or, a commercial buyer does not as far as I know have the right to say “I want the gold I buy/take delivery of to come from the vault on Townsend Street and not the one on Canal Street. And being fungible, he/she should not care. These are going to be “so-called” good delivery bars of I think 400 oz. (I have pinged SAJ so he can correct me on anything I posit here)
So...why would they do this? If as the article says it’s “business as usual”, then the CME should make the deliveries from an alternate location, and if said alt location is in NYC, that should be what, a dozen blocks away, tops?
Enquiring minds, that kind of thing...