The port explosion is not the latest disaster

A week ago, a two-story building collapsed in the Medawar area. It could not bear the first winter and collapsed in the rains. There was no doubt that it would fall, after the loss of half a house in the explosion in the port on 4 August. After the explosion, the foundation of the house cracked. Pillars fell, others were half hung and the walls collapsed. Therefore, the fall was expected. Fortunately, there were no victims, the tenants abandoned it after the army carried out a reconnaissance of the area, according to which the building was classified as “vulnerable to collapse”.

When the building collapsed, the tenants, who are mostly Beirut port workers, were watching its fall. They couldn’t get anything out of the rubble. They left there only with their clothes, and since then, “the army prevented us from entering,” says one of the workers, adding sarcastically: “The army sealed the building three months ago, and the owner of the building received compensation, then the house was left without reinforcements or even demolished so that the storm would come and fall alone. ” In the vicinity of the former tenants, the carpentry workers in front of the collapsed building recounted their observations. But they seemed to be dealing with the clashes around them. On the wall of their workplace, a cracked building had collapsed earlier, and in the back neighborhood, they were waiting for a building to fall as well. Nearby is George, who was working at the nearby hotel that the explosion had emptied of its inmates. He was standing and watching to lift the rubble of the recently collapsed building … and he witnessed, as he witnessed on August 4, the thunderous collapse in the area. He points to the houses that are coming to an end, many of which are counted in the neighborhood, as well as in the neighborhoods affected by the explosion, from Al-Rumeil to Karantina to Al-Khandaq Al-Ghamiq and others.
This is the case in those areas, including al-Mudawwar, the area that has suffered its share of destruction, the tax attached to the “Gate” of the port. There, life was turned upside down after the explosion. Most of the people who used to live in the area are now displaced, while the rest are rebuilding their lives in what remains of their homes. Among them is Kamal, who now lives in a house with a half roof after the other half cracked. During the last winter, water entered the rooms of the house from the roof. The man cannot afford to repair the roof. Remember the moment the ceiling was shattered. At the time, Kamal didn’t know “where the attacks are coming from.” In a moment, it was all over. Once the storm subsided, he recalled “how the port hangars were applied to the ground”, while redrawing the shape of his neighborhood after several buildings had been turned into rubble, including “the building that we had in front of the port” . If it weren’t for that building, he says: “Today we would have been martyrs.” In Kamal’s house, nothing escaped the explosion, not the roof, the windows, the doors, or the walls.

The Ministry of Public Works did not do anything that could “prevent” an additional disaster for the neighborhoods destroyed by the explosion.

In this period, the military, engineers and societies came to estimate the damage. “All we were able to achieve with the help of some associations is to change the windows and doors, and we are still missing the locks on the doors.” Kamal is not alone in his suffering. People there complain about the help that reached those affected and not others. Although they are still waiting for compensation, according to the survey that was carried out to their homes, today they doubt that anything will be achieved. Their certainty increased today with the first storm that entered their homes.
There is an apparent absence of the state there. Often people do not remember this absence, but it suddenly fell on them with the explosion of the port, where they found themselves alone. Except for the survey conducted by the military in cooperation with various engineering teams and the compensation that was distributed, which many are unaware of based on the mechanism that was spent, the state did not return there. This absence compensated the teams of volunteers, whether they were the engineering teams of the Engineers Union or the “autonomous”, activists and civil societies. Although some of these initiatives were effective, what weakened their effectiveness was that they were “individualistic”, without coordination.
However, people like to mention the “advantages” of associations that have filled a need. Window from here. Door from there. Reinforcement of walls. restoration. “Bye,” says Uncle Samir. The latter experienced how people were left alone when “the world revealed itself.” The seventeenth notes that most of the layers of the earth entered the water, after the roads overflowed due to the sewers that were blocked by debris. This last detail is part of the larger story. The history of sewers and state ministries. Four months after the explosion, the rubble is still on its land, no decision has been made on where to move it, and the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation has not done what could “prevent” a further disaster. In this context, the Lebanese Real Estate Authority asked the Ministry of Public Works and Municipalities to “clean the winter water drainage channels of public streets and alleys from dust and debris that help to reverse the rotation of the water.” That invitation was preceded by the stormy trial that sank many homes.
According to the Lebanese Real Estate Authority, the port explosion damaged at least 200,000 homes, ranging from the most affected to the most common. Some of these units are classified as dangerous, including “51 buildings at risk of collapse and 41 seriously damaged buildings,” according to Beirut Mayor Marwan Abboud, according to the latest report issued according to the survey conducted by the city and municipality of Beirut. .
Some of these buildings are still inhabited due to the inability of their residents to find an alternative location, and others are waiting for another storm to end. In both cases, there is an official, the state, who leaves them to their own devices. Although the army leadership announced the beginning of the distribution of a batch of material aid to 17% of those affected by the explosion in the port, this does not cover part of the needs of the population, whose homes were leveled with the ground. Those who live in the heart of the rubble only ask that the state move before the storm season, because that is much better for them than mobilization at the time of its fall.

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