Tales From A City On Fire.
Lebanon’s Countdown To “National Catastrophe.”
BEIRUT- Incoming reports of a raging warehouse fire at the city’s port began flooding emergency channels on the evening of Tuesday, August 4, 2020 at approx. 6pm.
As emergency first responders began arriving on scene, they notice what seemed like fireworks exploding above their heads.
Moments later, a massive explosion erupts with a shockwave felt for over 150 miles, devastating an entire nation.
“It looks like Hiroshima or Nagasaki”, stated Governor Marwan Abboud.
Many reports confirm that the blast was attributed to the ignition of 2,750 tonnes of confiscated ammonium nitrate left unsecured at a nearby hanger.
This explanation, in lieu of a formal investigation, has been confidently touted by none other than Lebanon’s sitting Prime Minister Hassan Diab, who would continue to add that “facts about this dangerous warehouse that has been there since 2014 will be announced and I will not preempt the investigations”.
“I promise you that this catastrophe will not pass without accountability..Those responsible will pay the price,” he concluded in a televised address to the nation.
But how did Lebanon get here? And who can its citizens actually hold accountable in the wake of such a tragic event?
Our answers lie in the months directly proceeding the evening of August 4, 2020.
“EVERYTHING WAS BURNT TO ASHES”
October 14, 2019. Over 100 unprecedented wildfires grip the region of Mount Lebanon during a record heatwave and high winds as reported by the Lebanese Civil Defense.
“Lebanese Civil Defense firefighters aren’t equipped to fight forest fires”, commented George Mitri, a professor and director of the Land and Natural Resources Program at Lebanon’s University of Balamand and an expert in forest fires, in an interview with Vox Media.
Neighboring Cyprus, Greece and Jordan were eventually called upon for aid after it was revealed Lebanon’s own fire-fighting aircraft were not fit to deal with the blaze due to a lack of maintenance funds. A sign of bureaucratic negligence and corruption which would be echoed with deadly consequence in the coming months.
It would all come down to the country’s armored riot police vehicles, whose water canons were repurposed to aid in the fight against the wildfires.
All of this had been occurring as Lebanon experiences its first sovereign default US Dollars began to disappear from commercial banks across the country; Lending to stark and aggressive hyper-inflation of the Lebanese pound, the likes of which hadn’t been seen for nearly two decades.
Shortages on petrol and wheat soon became prevalent as importers of these commodities demanded to be paid in dollars.
Bakeries and petrol station unions called strikes as residents were left unimpressed while remaining resilient.
October 20, 2019. The government proposes new taxes on tobacco, petrol and voice calls via ‘free’ messaging services such as WhatsApp to drum up more revenue.
The backlash forced an immediate retraction for the proposed tax within hours but not without unleashing a national surge of discontent that had been simmering in Lebanon for years.
A REVOLUTION IS BORN
With the thick black smoke of burning tires filling the sky with anticipation and alarm, an entire nation was about to be tested. A united call for freedom rang true across the country and around the world.
Freedom from corruption. Freedom from decay. Freedom from tyranny.
The subsequent days and months would bring over a million people of various ethnic and religious backgrounds together in city streets across the country in a rare and unprecedented display of unity during anti-government protests which hadn’t been seen or felt since the era directly preceding Lebanon’s Civil War.
Their demands were simple. The resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri along with his entire cabinet.
January 21, 2020. PM Saad Hariri resigns from office amidst growing civil unrest.
Thousands of protestors would continue to gather at the barricaded gates of Beirut’s parliament district each day and night for over 120 consecutive days only to be attacked and intimidated by a range of Lebanese security forces.
The very same water canons atop armored riot police vehicles used to quell the country’s wildfires only weeks prior were now being turned against the general public.
With the world watching, the stage was set. A fight for change and survival was now underway.
‘The October Revolution’ had begun.
COVID-19 AND THE BUILD-UP TO THE UNTHINKABLE
February 21, 2020. Novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 arrives in Lebanon via a 45-year-old woman traveling back from pilgrimage in Qom, Iran, a city heavily devastated by the virus.
Four days later another woman on the same flight tests positive.
March 10, 2020. The country reports its first Coronavirus-related death but not before an historic sovereign default on a $1.2 bn Eurobond debt obligation the previous day.
May 13, 2020. A full lockdown goes into effect in response to over 100 new cases in the previous 4 days bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 870 with 26 reported deaths.
Lebanon’s healthcare system was already grossly under-funded and under-equipped prior to the arrival of coronavirus as dwindling foreign reserves prompted a struggle to secure US Dollars for basic medical imports.
Matched alongside a significant shortage of test kits amidst the outbreak as reported by Al Jazeera have contributed to some 250,000 undocumented migrants, a demographic which have been categorized as most susceptible to contracting Covid-19, have had no access to testing since the outbreak began.
“WE ARE HUNGRY”
With an economy in free-fall and hyper-inflation of local currency on the rise, it would become evident sooner than later that Lebanese government officials were equally unprepared to handle the outbreak of Covid-19 as they were during the wildfires months prior.
Clashes between anti-government protestors and Lebanese Security forces would continue to escalate throughout Spring 2020 as widespread hunger was becoming a more paramount concern.
“The problem is that you’re having a combined crisis, between the essential economic crisis and the Covid-19 crisis,” stated Social Affairs Minister Ramzi Musharrafieh. “Unfortunately with the problem of the Covid-19, the situation has been compounded.”
Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, the World Bank projected that 45% of people in Lebanon would be below the poverty line in 2020. Now, the government believes that up to 75% of people are in need of critical aid.
AUGUST 4th, 2020
The explosion shook the ground with the force equal to a 3.3 magnitude earthquake.
The shockwave was reportedly felt as far away as neighboring Cyprus and leveled the entire port of Beirut along with large swaths of the city’s downtown business district.
Lining up with PM Diab’s earlier claims, fresh evidence suggests that the thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate Lebanese officials are blaming for Tuesday’s massive explosion arrived in the city more than six years ago via a troubled Russian-owned cargo ship which made an unscheduled stop at the city’s port while en-route to Mozambique.
When the owner, Russian businessman Igor Grechushkin failed to pay port fees, Lebanese officials impounded it, forcing the crew to remain aboard.
Customs officials wrote letters to the courts at least six times between 2014 and 2017, seeking guidance on how to dispose of the highly combustible material, according to public records cited by Lebanese lawmaker, Salim Aoun.
Solutions proposed by the officials included exporting the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, which is used in fertilizer and explosives, or donating it to the Lebanese Army. But records suggest that the judiciary failed to respond to these inquiries.
The general manager of Beirut port, Hassan Koraytem, confirmed in an interview the day after the blast, that despite repeated requests from customs and security officials, “nothing happened.”
As of this writing, at least 135 are confirmed dead alongside 5,000 wounded while some 300,000 people are currently without shelter and in dire need of aid.
“Thank You all for the overwhelming outpour of support and concern and for taking the time to read and understand how the underlying themes of systemic corruption and criminal negligence have played a critical role in the events leading up to the Port of Beirut Explosion and how we can avoid such a calamity from ever happening in the future.” — Mazin Akar
WAYS TO HELP:
REFERENCES :
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/middleeast/lebanon-hunger-aid-coronavirus-intl/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/world/middleeast/beirut-lebanon-explosion.html
