Recently Lebanon has witnessed it’s biggest explosion in Beirut; fingers are being pointed in every direction and politicians not taking accountability with what happened. This explosion is one fifth the impact that the Hiroshima bomb had thus destroying the Beirut port which counts for more than 70% of the country’s economy.
However, how and why did it arrive to the port in the first place?
It’s believed that the ship was headed to the Mozambique but had to stop by the Beirut port due to some technical problems faced on the ship and since they weren’t able to afford the port tariffs, the ship was abandoned at the port in 2014. As some who knew about the ammonium nitrate being stored in hangar 12 repetitively demanded the government to do something such as sending it back or at least by changing it’s location to a safer place away from the people but the Lebanese government failed to take any action and it stayed there neglected for years.
What caused the explosion?
There is no definite answer to what exactly caused the explosion however, a ticking bomb left for 6 years that eventually exploded and caused immense damage to the Lebanese people as well as to their economy demands for it. Knowing that ammonium nitrate needs to be ignited, many theories as to what happened. Some people said that it was caused by the welding of the hangar’s metal frame storing the ammonium nitrate (not knowing that it was stored there) which supposedly caused the ignition of this chemical. While others reported that it was caused by fireworks kept near the ammonium nitrate. Not all the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate were exploded, only about 500 tons of it as if all of them exploded, it could cause a massive damage on the scale of the entire country.
Lebanon has been through a lot! An immensely corrupted country being controlled by corrupted politicians profiting off of the Lebanese people’s misery. After the Lebanese revolution known as the “thawra”, Lebanon in less than a year lost more than 60% of it’s currency value. people’s savings in the Banks have been destroyed, not allowing them to access their own hard earned money. In addition to all that the Coronavirus pandemic drove the already suffering economy into a halt driving thousands towards unemployment. Amidst all that, Lebanon suffered a massive explosion leaving hundreds dead, thousands homeless and injured with no where to go. Many countries helped Lebanon with with immediate aid and the most important of them being France; Immediately after the explosion Emmanuel Macron flew to Lebanon for an urgent meeting with the politicians introducing them to a new political pact, he also promised the Lebanese people that change will come and promised that he’d be coming back on the September the first on the 100th anniversary of the creation of the Greater Lebanon in 1920 which gave many hope that real change will happen. People want justice, they want to know who knew about this ammonium nitrate and turned a blind eye, they want the responsible punished and put behind bars.
Change is coming!
