The Unprecedented Affair Between Anguish and Atrocity
An account of Beirut’s 4th of August explosion
Please be aware, the story includes graphic content and disturbing images.
The morning of the 4th of August was a typical one in Beirut, a middle eastern city full of everything. As I walked to work, sunshine warmly touched my face, and the tranquil blue sky gently smiled at me. Naturally, I greeted everyone I knew on the way — including Mazen, the coffee maker who always had my essential morning drink ready right on time. I arrived at the facility that I work in, went up to the 5th floor, had a quick chat with the secretary, and entered my office, room 509.
I am a neuropsychologist who was working as a senior research assistant at the American University of Beirut. It was 9:00 AM. I reviewed my 4th of August schedule. It was full, just like every day. Little did I know that a catastrophe was cooking in Beirut’s port, and that catastrophe was about to change the lives of millions in less than a minute.
No, it was not like any other day.
It was 5:40 pm and apart from the security guard, I was alone in the building, beginning to close my files. There was one more virtual meeting to attend at 5:45 pm. The meeting began. It was about an initiative that I had started a while back in order to provide psychological support to Lebanese individuals suffering from the economic crisis. We ran over the allocated meeting time, but that was okay. It was for a good cause. The call ended at 6:05 pm. I hung up the phone and stood up to close the rest of my files before leaving.
Then at 6:07 pm, the first explosion happened. The building shook and panic spiked up in me. I remember asking myself, ‘Is this the beginning of another war?’. I stood confused. A few seconds later it was 6:08 pm and the big explosion happened. I was thrown to the ground, glass shattered, parts of the roof fell down, and there was dust everywhere.
I started running down the stairs. It took me less than a minute to reach the ground floor. I cannot recollect what I was thinking during that duration, but I remember very well what I was feeling. I felt that I was in a dark hole of death, running around with no place to escape from. It felt like an eternity. On the ground floor, I saw more glass shattered and the security guard standing, bleeding, with the face of someone in that dark hole as well. He grabbed me and asked if there was anyone else in here, I said ‘no’. We both started running out of the building.
The glass was everywhere on the street. Beirut’s tranquil blue sky was now red. Outside, everyone was confused and the air we were breathing was full of terror. I called all the patients enrolled in our studies who were at the hospital affiliated with the university. They were all okay. I began walking towards the emergency department, and there, I saw the unprecedented affair between anguish and atrocity.
Minutes after the explosion, the first ambulance arrives… Followed by another one, and then another car, and another car, and another car, and again and again until they blocked the roads. People were getting out of their cars bleeding, everyone was screaming, more people were coming in injured. There was blood everywhere, blood on the streets, blood on the walls, blood on everyone, and blood on everything. There was no more capacity to take patients in at the emergency department. Doctors and nurses started treating individuals lying down on the street outside of the entrance.
I saw a young man walking in a daze. Confused, he was bleeding heavily from his head. I grabbed him and rushed him to the nearest hospital for admission to urgent care, and I walked back. I saw more blood and heard even more screams. I could not believe what was happening. It felt like the world had stopped. In my mind, it did stop.
I remember standing and just looking around me. In those brief moments, I could hear nothing anymore, and the scenes became slow in motion. I turned around, and turned around, and turned around slowly. I looked up to the sky again It was still red and beginning to get dark. I looked down at the palm of my hands. They were full of blood. I looked around me again. More people were bleeding and rushing while carrying others. I did not know if those other people were dead or alive.
There were so many of them, babies, children, young adults, elderly, everyone. I look to my right and I spot a friend of mine with her three kids. She was sitting on the floor holding her children and screaming, all covered in blood too. I ran to her. Her husband was severely injured and was quickly rushed to the operating room shortly after the explosion. People were screaming different names at the medical staff, the names of their loved ones, trying to find out about them. Then the security closed the gates of the emergency department.
At that moment, the world stopped one more time. I woke up again from surrealism to phone calls from my friends, family, and countless text messages from different countries. After a few hours, my friend’s uncle comes towards us and informed my friend that her husband has died.
At around 2:00 am, I walked to my house. Destruction surrounded me. I sat on the ground and opened my phone again. Texts were still coming in, I marked myself safe on Facebook. But was I really safe? Was my mind safe? I clicked to watch the first video that popped into my feed. That was when I saw it, the explosion that demolished half of Lebanon’s capital, my big love Beirut, my people, and my home.
Even today, I can still hear the blast in my head, the sound of a nation’s misery. I watched the video over and over again, and I watched other videos as well. Different scenarios, same explosion, stories of different people, different accounts, the same despair. The next day we went close to the Port, walked in Gemmayze and Mar Mkhayel. The sight of the destruction shattered my internal fabric into a billion pieces, and I could not sleep for days.
For around two weeks, I was helping my friends in their quick aid tent, where they took medical care of individuals affected by the blast. There was a 14-year-old boy who we saw. His fingers were bleeding. I was standing next to him looking at his hand and then it hit me.
I felt dizzy, my heart started racing, I could barely breathe, I was about to collapse, my hands were shivering, and I started sweating heavily. I dragged myself out of the tent and fell down while scenes from the emergency department were replaying abruptly in my mind. A pharmacist who was working in another tent ran towards me to help me out. The episode passed, and I lay on the ground, looking up at the tranquil blue sky again.
The world was taken by Beirut’s 4th of August explosion and the enormous damage caused by the explosion of tons of Ammonium Nitrate stored poorly for years in Beirut’s port. It caused at least 204 deaths and 6,500 injuries. The estimate was that 300,000 were homeless, with an estimate of 15 billion USD in property damage. (source: The Economist, 27th August 2020 edition). A full nation was in tears. Some people are still missing today, and the tragedy has damaged the psyche of many.
Later I took my last coffee from Mazen, and I left the country after 2 days. Now I am in London, enrolled on a full scholarship in a clinical psychology doctorate at one of the world’s most prestigious universities. I have phenomenal friends and classmates. But as I look outside my window, I know that there is no other tranquil blue sky and warm sunshine like the one in Beirut.
I am writing my account with tears running down my face. My people are still hurting. This is one account in a pool of many stories that the people of Beirut lived. Stories of terror, suffering, death, and anguish. Many of us survived the world’s biggest non-nuclear explosion on the 4th of August. That unwelcome event will not leave us. It is a day that we will never forget.
While we saw the unprecedented affair between anguish and atrocity on the 4th of August, our own affair with Beirut and its people will always prevail. With that, many of us will return home. We will rebuild a nation gracefully. We have survived one of the greatest terrors of the century.
About the photos: Sarah Abdallah is an independent Lebanese geopolitical commentator. Issam Abdallah is a Reuters Video Journalist based in Beirut. Karim Sokhn is a private tour and operator guide in Lebanon, he is also a bike shop owner and technician. Fadel Itani is an independent videographer and photographer. Aziz Taher is an independent photographer. The photos selected for the article are used with permission.
