Lebanese rescue workers dug through the mangled wreckage of buildings on Wednesday looking for survivors after a massive warehouse explosion sent a devastating blast wave across Beirut, killing at least 100 people and injuring nearly 4,000.
Officials said the toll was expected to rise after Tuesday’s blast that has been initially blamed on a shipment of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in an unsecured warehouse at Beirut’s cargo port.
The blast was the most powerful ever to rip through Beirut, a city still scarred by civil war three decades ago and reeling from an economic meltdown and a surge in coronavirus infections.
It sent a mushroom cloud into the sky and rattled windows on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, about 100 miles (160 km) away.
But the government subsequently announced an investigation to determine the exact cause of the explosion and “who was responsible” within five days.
“I will not rest until we find the person responsible for what happened, to hold him accountable and impose the most severe penalties,” Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab said in the early house of Wednesday morning, adding that it was unacceptable that such a volume of the explosive chemical had been present for six years in a warehouse without any “preventive measures.” It wasn’t immediately clear what ignited the shipment of ammonium nitrate.
The chemical is commonly used as fertilizer, but is also a component in mining explosives when combined with fuel oil and detonated by an explosive charge. Ammonium nitrate can also combust, however, when met with an intense fire, which appeared to be burning in a part of the port before the explosion took place.
Local media footage and videos uploaded to social media following the blast showed bloodied people walking through debris-strewn streets. Medical staff had to treat patients in parking lots as hospitals exceeded capacity. And countless more victims remain missing — by Wednesday morning, an Instagram page called “LocateVictimsBeirut,” where residents post photos of their missing friends and family, had amassed 63,500 followers.
Yumna Fawaz, a local journalist, described the population as “shocked.” “We lost our people and our city. My entire apartment is destroyed,” she said. Another witness described “chaos,” and said that many friends were injured, with some still searching for family members.
The immediate crisis in homelessness, health, overwhelmed medical services and destroyed property and businesses on top of an already crippled economy will only accelerate government collapse, Eurasia Group analysts wrote in a note Wednesday morning.
“The government’s credibility is declining, and large elements of the public no longer believes the government is able to manage,” the consultancy wrote. “In our view this accelerates movement towards collapse of the current government. The economic crisis will also deepen as the port is the main trade valve and base for many stored goods awaiting clearance.”
Any recovery for Lebanon now will be “massively difficult,” said Rodger Shanahan, a Middle East research fellow at Australia’s Lowy Institute.
On Monday, Lebanon’s foreign minister resigned, criticizing the government’s lack of action and will to solve the country’s financial problems that risk making it a “failed state.” And the port explosion came as tensions simmered ahead of a UN tribunal verdict on Friday on the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in a truck bombing in 2005.
The four suspects in the trial are all members of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shia paramilitary and political group widely seen as the most powerful political party in Lebanon. The suspects deny any role in Hariri’s death. Hezbollah is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
____
Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng
Copyright 2020 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant sources.
