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Norma was about to leave her apartment in Beirut when she suddenly collided with a cloud of dust in front of her, to discover that it was caused by the fall of a part of a nearby archaeological building that was blown up by the explosion of the port before let the heavy rains fall.
“We were born here and grew up here, the whole neighborhood is like our home, we know every corner (…) and here we are losing the scenes of our son and growing up with him,” says Norma Maschat, in her fifties.
“The building should have been better reinforced,” he said. “All of this is the result of state negligence, the negligence of everything.”
Rmeil 24 is one of the many old buildings in Beirut dating back to the Ottoman era. Although it was deserted for more than 40 years, its ground floor contained one of the most famous ice cream parlors, the Hanna Mitri store, which was a major destination for tourists and Beirut residents, before its roof completely collapsed due to the Port explosion, forcing him to change location.
Like other buildings, “Rmeil 24” also did not withstand the onset of the rains, which fell profusely for a week in Beirut.
The horrific explosion in the port on August 4 killed more than two hundred people and injured more than 6,500. It also damaged some 70,000 homes, and sparked a long history that traditional buildings with their ornate walls, colored windows and tall arches have preserved, before becoming mere facades with huge gaps.
Ninety monumental buildings are now threatened with collapse today with the start of the rainy season, acting Culture Minister Abbas Mortada told AFP.
– ‘Our legacy and our legacy’ –
“We lose a lot in Lebanon,” says Carla, 52, who also grew up near the Rmeil 24 building. “We experience a new trauma every month.” “This is our heritage and ours (…) It is regrettable that this is the case,” he added.
Engineer Yasmine Makaroun, a volunteer in the restoration effort of the Association for the Promotion of the Protection of Natural Sites and Ancient Buildings in Lebanon, explains that rainwater has doubled the holes in the roof of the building, causing its “partial collapse”.
She explains that it could have been saved if the owner had not been slow to allow access to repair workers, noting that the building could have been reinforced ten days before the rains started. “We could have started with the first stage (…) and saved it, even partially,” he says.
Lebanon, which is experiencing accelerated economic collapse, exacerbated by the port explosion, relies on foreign aid to rebuild and restore affected neighborhoods. However, the international community, which pledged more than 250 million euros immediately after the explosion, insisted that the aid not go through state institutions accused of corruption, but under the auspices of the United Nations and directly to the Lebanese people.
Mourtado said: “International organizations do not pay enough attention to the issue of old buildings.” “There is a deficit in the ministry’s capabilities,” he added, especially in terms of engineering and technical staff.
The Director General of Antiquities, Sarkis Khoury, estimated that Lebanon needs $ 300 million to restore Beirut’s heritage.
“We only have God”
In the nearby Gemmayzeh neighborhood, trucks full of aluminum sheets pass through a street that has changed characteristics. Construction and restoration workers outnumber pedestrians, speeding past buildings for fear of knocking down a wall here or a roof there.
Workers are busy removing debris from an old building that a Chilean relief team thought in September had detected a heartbeat before it was later disappointed.
Just a few kilometers away, the Karantina area adjacent to the port seems more vulnerable. On Wednesday, rain caused a building to collapse that was the first casualty of the stormy season.
While workers and volunteers from an aid organization lifted stones that fell into the street, others were busy reinforcing the wall of another building on the opposite side.
Red and yellow ribbons surrounded many buildings, and next to them were signs that warned citizens not to enter or approach them.
Karantina is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Beirut, many Syrian and foreign workers have settled in it. The explosion added to the suffering of its residents due to its location next to the port.
A Syrian looks at a modern building that has not been accompanied by the explosion, with teary eyes, and it was not enough for him that he was a witness to the disaster, but he is still experiencing its repercussions.
He says, “We can’t say anything … We only have God.”
