Beirut explosion: rescue workers find no sign of life in the rubble of collapsed building

BeirutRescuers said Saturday there was no longer any sign of life in a collapsed building in Beirut, dashing hopes generated by sensor readings showing a pulse beneath the rubble from last month’s explosion.

The catastrophic August 4 explosion in Beirut port killed at least 191 people, making it the deadliest peace disaster in Lebanon. A month later, seven people are still listed as missing.

On Wednesday night, a sniffer dog deployed by Chilean rescuers detected an odor under a collapsed building in the heavily damaged neighborhood of Gemmayzeh, adjacent to the port.

High-tech sensors confirmed an apparent heartbeat and rescue teams began their search.

But after three days of work removing piles of masonry, Chilean rescue specialist Francesco Lermanda said Saturday night that there were no longer any signs of life under the rubble. “Unfortunately today we can say that technically we have no signs of life inside the building,” he told the media.

Two rescue workers slipped through a final tunnel Saturday to search for a victim in the last air pocket where there could possibly be, but found no one there, he said.

However, work will continue to secure the area and ensure that there is no possibility of any victims remaining inside, Lermanda said.

In the afternoon, engineer Riyadh al-Assad said that the workers had cleared two layers of rubble and reached a staircase, where they found no one.

The director of operations for the civil defense agency, George Abou Moussa, said in the morning that the chances of finding someone alive were “very low.”

But civil defense officer Qassem Khater said his team was determined not to give up. “We will not leave the site until we have finished going through the rubble, even if it threatens the collapse of a new building,” he said.

Chilean specialist Walter Muñoz had calculated the chances of finding a survivor at “two percent” in the morning.

Lebanese officials had downplayed the chances of someone surviving this long under the rubble.

But even the dim hope for a miracle captured the imagination of a country already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic and the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.

“I didn’t know that I needed a miracle so badly. Please God give Beirut this miracle it deserves,” said Selim Mourad, a 32-year-old filmmaker.

Lebanon lacks the tools and experience to handle advanced search and rescue operations, so it has received the support of experts from Chile, France and the United States.

Chileans, in particular, have been praised as heroes by many Lebanese on social media, who have likened their experience to the lackluster performance of what they see as their own absent state.

The country observed a minute of silence for the dead on Friday.