Beirut is a ‘destroyed city’ after explosion that killed 100 & wounded thousands more
Beirut: Army personnel and rescue workers sifted through mountains of rubble from a massive explosion that flattened Lebanon’s main port, looking for survivors from a blast that roared through the capital, Beirut, killing at least 100 people and wounding thousands more.
Authorities appealed to other countries for emergency aid as concerns over food supply in the import-dependent nation mounted. Officials blamed highly explosive ammonium nitrate equivalent to 1,800 tons of TNT that had been stored at the port for years, without saying what triggered the blast. Among the pledges of support, France said it would send medical supplies and doctors by Thursday, while Germany offered members of its armed forces to aid search operations.
In Lebanon, outrage over the government’s role in the calamity ran high in a country already groaning under the weight of the worst financial crisis in its history, and a resurgent coronavirus outbreak. Dozens of people gathered in downtown Beirut as former Prime Minister Saad Hariri inspected the damage, beating cars in his convoy and shouting “They killed Beirut.”
“It’s like an apocalypse,” lawmaker Yassine Jaber told Bloomberg. “Pure negligence and that’s the ultimate manifestation of how bad governance has been in Lebanon, with no accountability whatsoever, a manifestation of failure that should jolt us to wake up.”
The army cordoned off the port, through which much of Lebanon’s food and other supplies enter. The nation imports nearly all of its needs from abroad, including wheat and fuel, which the central bank has been subsidizing from its dwindling reserves. Wheat silos at the port were
damaged, and their contents — equal to about six weeks of the country’s needs — were rendered unfit for consumption, Economy Minister Raoul Nehme said.
‘Destroyed city’
“Beirut has never seen anything like this before,” the city’s governor, Marwan Abboud, told reporters near the scene, comparing it to the aftermath of a nuclear bomb. “It is a destroyed city, people lying on the streets, damage everywhere.”
Prime Minister Hassan Diab described the blast as a “major national disaster,” and said the material that caused the explosion had been there since 2014.
“I will not rest until we hold whoever is responsible accountable and punish them with the most severe punishment,” he said. “It’s unacceptable that 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate have been stored in a container in a depot for the past six years,” he said during a meeting of the Higher Defense Council.
