© REUTERS / Mohamed Azakir
Explosion in the port of Beirut
The Beirut explosion left at least 300,000 people homeless. Material damage is $ 3-5 billion.
Yesterday’s explosion in the port area has destroyed at least half of the city. The blast killed at least a hundred people and injured nearly 4,000. Clearance and rescue work is underway, so the number of victims is likely to rise further.
Rami Rifai, 38, who was caring for his two daughters in the hospital, was inconsolable.
– Gloomy times have been experienced in Lebanon in the past, but not like this. We are in the midst of an economic crisis, the government is full of thieves and then there is still the coronavirus. I didn’t think the situation could get any worse, but I don’t know if the country will rise from this anymore, Rifai said.
“Everyone who can will try to leave the country, and so do I.” Rifai continued, swallowing his tears.
Real estate agent Johnny Assaf said he lost everything except his life in the accident.
– I first saw a cloud of mushrooms, and then the force of the explosion flew me to the other side of the office, where I hit my head on the printer. In the sick, my head was quilted without anesthesia, and the quilting was also interrupted because more seriously injured people were brought there all the time. I saw people die in front of me, Assaf repeated.
In its headline, the Lebanese magazine L’Orient-Le Jour briefly described the events as the end of the world.