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It was unimaginable that something so bad could happen. But, it happened. An explosion of 2,570 tons of ammonium nitrate in Beirut's port on Tuesday severely affected Lebanon's economy, which was further affected by the outbreak.
Phone cameras captured mushroom WhatsApp Number List clouds of smoke billowing into the sky as the fire broke out before the eruption. Even the video footage was only a few seconds away - the people filming it fell to the ground. Blurred inverted figures, shouts, prayers, scattering metal; mirrors, sliding walls; I saw a video of a man before he died in this explosion. So far 137 people have died, 5000 have been injured and three lakh have been left homeless.
I came to know about this through a WhatsApp message sent by my parents who live three miles away from the port. The door of their residence was blown off its hinges. Glass was broken in their building and in buildings far away.
Four are i dire need of medical beds and equipment due to rising Covid-19 infections
Hospitals wre destroyed. The outbreak destroyed 85% of the country's grain reserves, leaving the economy in a state where the poor could not even buy bread. Central Beirut has only 12 hours of electricity a day; Right now power companies are badly affected - what to say?
It is horrible that such disasters are caused by natural disasters. What happened now is worse than a natural disaster. It is not known how fire is involved in ammonium nitrate; But the Mozambique-bound vessel was stopped at Beirut port due to some problem and more than 2500 tons of ammonium nitrate was stored in Beirut port warehouse for six years. My American friend asked indignantly how the people allowed this. Knowing their corruption and irresponsibility, I did not find it surprising to others.
The President, the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Parliament did not say anything about the accident. They couldn't look anyone in the eye and say anything, as someone said on Twitter. They left the arena to Emmanuel Macron. He gave speeches in Beirut, met with politicians, spoke to civil society activists and promised to help. Everyone knows that it contains the hidden message that you are the people who were under their colonial rule.
More than 50,000 people petitioned the French to take back control of Lebanon) The French president completely overshadowed the government of Lebanon. In others too, the government was visible. Doctors read the names of the dead over the radio. A television anchor complained that interviews were conducted with people asking pathetically for details about their lost loved ones. A state of emergency was declared; However, it was volunteers from various parts of the country who went ahead in the field to clear the debris.
The way Lebanese officials interact with the public always amazes me; The Minister of Health talks about the food shortage as if he has nothing to do with it. The Telecom Minister forgets his responsibility as the official responsible for the first time the internet went down and sends out a press release saying the internet is back up like a good news from a friend; The government ambassador, in speeches abroad, speaks in support of the rebels' slogans of ousting the government, as if the slogans do not refer to him. Government statements after the explosion were of this nature; Ministers are disturbed like everyone else, we have to blame others for this, we assure future security etc. Port authorities have arrested 16 people; No one resigned.
In a television interview, a woman expressed her six-fold anger at the man who has been in power for the past three decades. However, these problems are much older than that. Before those thirty years there was neither peace nor prosperity; 15 years of civil war- 1,20,000 people have been killed by the militias led by those in power today and thousands have been displaced. Thirty years before that, there had been some small protests in the interim between independence and the start of the civil wars.
I was not taught the history of my country in my school.
The text book stopped with the year 1943. Instead, we read about the causes of two world wars, about a bloodthirsty Ottoman officer, about the horrors brought about by an army of locusts in 1915, about French troops leaving Lebanon in 1943. I can only recall reading about the 1860s wars between Maronites and Druze landowners in Mount Lebanon, and reading drawings of 19th century emirs, their beards and colorful clothes in our school history class.
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發表於 2023-10-3 12:04:17
