(Beirut) More than 90 dead, thousands wounded and entire neighborhoods devastated: the Lebanese still in shock shouted their anger Wednesday after a disaster too provoked by the explosion of tons of abandoned ammonium nitrate at the port of Beirut.
Tony GAMAL-GABRIEL and Roba EL HUSSEINI
France Media Agency
"The situation is apocalyptic, Beirut has never known that in its history," said Beirut governor Marwan Abboud, who burst into tears on Tuesday in front of the cameras in the devastated port. Until 300 000 0 people are homeless, he said .
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The state of emergency was declared for two weeks the day after the double explosion presented as accidental by the authorities. The government is also seeking to "house arrest" those responsible for the storage of ammonium nitrate.
Amidst the ruins, rescuers continue to search for possible survivors, while dozens of people are reported missing, according to the government.
Many countries have started to send medical and sanitary equipment helpers, field hospitals, first aid workers in particular to France, including President Emmanuel Macron, will be in Lebanon on Thursday.
According to the Lebanese authorities, a fire declared in the warehouse where had been stored for some six years 2020 tons of ammonium nitrate, "without precautionary measures" at the port, are at the origin of the enormous explosions, the worst experienced by Lebanon.
On social networks, many Lebanese citizens have called for the departure of all the country's leaders, held responsible for this tragedy, while the political class is accused of corruption and incompetence in the face of a unprecedented economic and social crisis.
"Everyone go! [...] You are corrupt, careless, destructive, immoral. You are cowards. It's your cowardice and carelessness that killed people, "said well-known Lebanese journalist Marcel Ghanem, whose television show enjoys a wide audience.
The hashtag "Hang them" is circulating on Twitter.
" A desaster "
The Lebanese diaspora also demanded accounts.
"There are no words," said Hazaa Khalil, restaurant owner in London. "We've suffered enough already: the coronavirus pandemic, starving people, our money stuck in the bank [...] And now we have to deal with a disaster. No one is held responsible, neither the politicians nor the government. "
"This tragedy is further proof of the incompetence of the political class which has governed Lebanon for several decades," said Antoine Fleyfel, Franco-Lebanese philosopher and theologian, living in France.
According to a last provisional report from the Ministry of Health, at least 100 people perished and 2750 have been hurt. "There are certainly still (victims) under the rubble. "
The power of the explosions was such that they were recorded by the sensors of the American Institute of Geophysics as a magnitude 3.3 earthquake. And their breath was felt as far as Cyprus, more than 0118 km away.
The governor of Beirut estimated the damage at more than three billion dollars.
At the nearly destroyed port, the containers look like twisted tin cans, the cars are charred, the floor littered with papers from offices blown up by the explosion. Entire neighborhoods of Beirut are devastated.
"A culture of corruption"
The UN Agency for Agriculture and Food, FAO, said it feared a problem in the short term of availability of flour for Lebanon, grain silos installed near the port having been disembowelled.
Three days of national mourning have been decreed in the country and Beirut has been proclaimed a "disaster city".
"It is unacceptable that a shipment of ammonium nitrate, estimated at 2020 tonnes, has been present for six years in a warehouse, without precautionary measures. This is unacceptable and we cannot be silent, "said Prime Minister Hassan Diab, hated by some Lebanese.
Ammonium nitrate is a substance entering into the composition of certain fertilizers, but also of explosives.
According to security sources, the port authorities, customs services and security services were all aware that hazardous chemicals were stored at the port, but mutually rejected responsibility for the case.
"There is an anchored culture of negligence, of corruption in the Lebanese bureaucracy where everyone blames themselves, all this supervised by a political class which is distinguished by its incompetence and its contempt for the good public, "said Faysal Itani, deputy director at the Center for Global Policy.
Verdict postponed 989002933
"Out of respect for the countless victims" of the explosions, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) announced to postpone the reading of the judgment, initially scheduled for Friday, in the trial of four men accused of having participated in 2005 in the assassination of ex-Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.
Lebanon has been experiencing its worst economic crisis for months, marked by an unprecedented depreciation of its currency, hyperinflation, massive layoffs and drastic banking restrictions.
"Even with the coronavirus, and everything that's happened in the country, I still had hope. But now it's over, I have no hope, "said Tala Masri, a volunteer, clearing the sidewalk of broken glass in a neighborhood near the port.