Dozens of people, today, Sunday (October 4), marked the second anniversary of the Beirut port bombing, expressing anger at an ongoing investigation and officials taking no action.
Two months after the explosion, the Lebanese investigation could not reveal its circumstances and no results were announced. The August 4 explosion killed about 190 people, injured 6,500 and destroyed entire neighborhoods.
And on Sunday, shortly after six in the afternoon, corresponding to the time of the explosion, dozens of white balloons were written with the names of the victims from an area overlooking the port, according to an AFP photographer. Lebanese songs, such as Ms. Fairouz’s “Le Beirut”, were also broadcast over loudspeakers.
Participants at the memorial, including activists and relatives of the victims, held up photographs of their loved ones who died in the blast, which had briefly blocked the road. The protesters expressed their anger at the political leaders and held them accountable for the tragedy due to their corruption and incompetence.
“We live in torment every day,” said Samia, a mother of nine-year-old twins, who lost her to her husband, who worked at the port.
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A cloud of death, ruins and thousands of victims … Shocking images of the explosion in Beirut
Apocalypse movies come true in Beirut
Tuesday (August 4, 2020) was any ordinary summer day in Beirut’s history until a few minutes after 6 p.m. local time in the Lebanese capital, a disaster similar to scenes from doomsday movies occurred. : a terrible explosion in “Pavilion No. 12” of the port of Beirut “. Some 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate have been stored in it for six years without security measures,” according to Prime Minister Hassan Diab.
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A cloud of death, ruins and thousands of victims … Shocking images of the explosion in Beirut
Terrifying mushroom cloud
Although the explosions in Beirut are not strange, what the residents saw in the Beirut port explosion is something they had not seen before. After they saw a thick cloud of smoke, the explosion occurred that shook all of Lebanon to the island of Cyprus, 200 kilometers away, and at the place of the explosion a mushroom-shaped cloud appeared, which in the Mind is associated with nuclear explosions, such as the cloud that rises to the sky over Nagasaki after a nuclear bomb was dropped on it in August / August 1945.
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A cloud of death, ruins and thousands of victims … Shocking images of the Beirut explosion
Warnings since 2014
It is a “nightmare” of a summer night, which was warned of its occurrence years ago. Beirut Governor Judge Marwan Abboud revealed that a security report dating from 2014 warned of the possibility of an explosion due to the storage of highly explosive materials in a way that does not take into account public safety.
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A cloud of death, ruins and thousands of victims … Shocking images of the explosion in Beirut
Countless victims
After the explosion ruined the port area, rescuers, with the support of security forces, worked throughout the night searching for survivors or victims trapped under the rubble. At noon the following day, the Lebanese Red Cross reports that there are more than a hundred dead and four thousand injured, and that its teams continue to carry out search and rescue operations in the areas surrounding the site. However, whatever is said about the number of victims, the primary information will remain, as the actual numbers take a long time to quantify.
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A cloud of death, ruins and thousands of victims … Shocking images of the Beirut explosion
Massive destruction and huge material losses
It is a catastrophic situation that Beirut has never witnessed in its history, according to Abboud. In addition to the irreparable human losses, there are great material losses, since “about half of Beirut was destroyed or damaged”, and the governor of the struck city stated that “there are between 250 and 300 thousand people who are left homeless, because their homes have become uninhabitable. ” Damages cost between three and five billion dollars, pending final reports from engineers and experts.
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A cloud of death, ruins and thousands of victims … Shocking images of the explosion in Beirut
Beirut hospitals are no longer capable
Lebanon is experiencing an unprecedented financial crisis, and the Corona pandemic has pushed hospitals to full capacity, with those injured in the explosion overnight toured several hospitals that were unable to receive them. A doctor at the Hotel Dieu Hospital in Ashrafieh, east of Beirut, said the number of wounded at the hospital had reached 500, and asked not to bring any more wounded. In front of the Clemenceau hospital in western Beirut, dozens of wounded waited outside for treatment.
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A cloud of death, ruins and thousands of victims … Shocking images of the explosion in Beirut
The world laments and offers help, but how?
After the explosion, the countries of the world began to offer condolences to Lebanon and rushed to provide assistance, to the point where Israel, which is still officially at war with Lebanon, was among the first to offer aid. Countries have already sent aid, such as Kuwait and the Netherlands, and there is aid on its way to Beirut from countries such as Qatar, Jordan, Germany, Tunisia, Egypt and others, and it is especially concerned about medical teams, field hospitals, rescue teams and the recovery of victims, like the team that Germany decided to send.
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A cloud of death, ruins and thousands of victims … Shocking images of the explosion in Beirut
“Social Media” shows its positive side
Parallel to the official authorities, campaigns to help Lebanon in its ordeal were quickly launched on social media. There are exchange brochures posted by bloggers and tweeters inside and outside Lebanon that include telephones for people offering to receive those who have lost their homes and others asking for blood donations and searching for the missing. Prepared by: Salah Sharara
Ibrahim Hoteit, who lost his brother Tharwat in the blast, said: “We were waiting for them to show us that they are interested in our demands, which are to reveal the results of the investigations and hold the perpetrators accountable.” He added: “You killed our children twice, once with your corruption and the other with neglect of our demands.”
According to the official version, the explosion occurred in a warehouse where huge amounts of ammonium nitrate had been stored for more than six years “without precautionary measures”.
After the Lebanese authorities rejected requests for an international investigation into the blast, they opened a local investigation that has resulted in the arrest of about twenty people so far.
And it turned out that the Lebanese state, with all its apparatus, was aware of the dangers posed by these chemicals stored near residential neighborhoods in Beirut. The dangers of storing these materials in the port of Beirut were also reported by President Michel Aoun, the resigned Prime Minister Hassan Diab and the ministers and officials of the security services.
AAC / FB (AFP)
