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Lebanese rescuers searching the rubble in Beirut after the big explosion in the port a month ago detected signs of life under the masonry, a rescue worker said Thursday.
He was speaking after the state news agency reported that a team with a rescue dog had detected movement underneath a destroyed building in the Gemmayze area of Beirut, one of the hardest hit by the blast.
“These [signs of breathing and pulse] together with the temperature sensor it means there is a possibility of life, ”rescued Eddy Bitar told reporters.
However, after several hours of digging through the rubble, the operation was halted because the building was deemed too unsafe. Heavier machinery was required to help lift the debris safely, a rescue worker said, and it couldn’t be brought in until morning. “There is a lot of danger for the team,” Michel el-Mur told reporters. “There are 10 of them there and we can’t take a chance on just one of them.”
The rescue team included volunteers who arrived from Chile, as well as Lebanese volunteers and members of the civil defense. News of the rescue prompted crowds to form at the rescue site, who were angered when rescue efforts stopped in a city desperate for hope. “Shame! Shame! There’s a soul there!” A woman yelled at the Lebanese army members guarding the place.
Waiting for news while the rescue team searches for survivors. A young woman from the fire department who just fell through debris into the hole below. Nothing is certain, but some locals dare to be hopeful. pic.twitter.com/MuYJksuuC3
– Orla Guerin (@OrlaGuerin) September 3, 2020
Rescue teams dig through the rubble of a badly damaged building in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. Photograph: Joseph Eid / AFP via Getty Images
Earlier in the evening, rescue workers in bright jackets climbed over the building that collapsed in the blast, which killed about 190 people and injured 6,000 others. A rescuer led a rescue dog to the mound of shattered masonry. Bitar said a civil defense unit had been called in to help with additional equipment to carry out the search.
The Lebanese military said Thursday that it had found 4.35 tons of ammonium nitrate near the entrance to the Beirut port, the same highly explosive chemical that caused the explosion.
Army engineers were “dealing with it,” according to an army statement issued by the state news agency NNA. The statement said the chemicals were found outside entrance nine to the port.
Authorities said the catastrophic August 4 explosion was caused by some 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been stacked in unsafe conditions in a port warehouse for years.
The explosion ripped apart entire neighborhoods, destroyed buildings and injured thousands.
The Lebanese government resigned amid public anger in a nation already on its knees by an economic crisis. The public remains concerned that more hazardous materials are being poorly stored, putting them at risk.
Early Thursday, President Michel Aoun ordered the old refueling infrastructure at Beirut airport to be repaired and called for an investigation into a report that thousands of liters of fuel had leaked from the system.
Beirut airport director Fadi el-Hassan told a press conference that an 84,000-liter fuel leak had occurred in March 2019 and repairs were completed in two months. He said international investigators had described the repairs as “satisfactory”.
News of the leak added to concerns about public safety. “We are not expecting an explosion,” Hassan said at the news conference. – Reuters
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