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Crisis-hit Lebanon marks two years Thursday since a massive explosion ripped through Beirut, with victims’ relatives planning protest marches as they keep demanding truth and justice.
The portside blast of haphazardly stored ammonium nitrate, one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever, killed more than 200 people, wounded thousands more and decimated vast areas of the capital.
Yet an investigation into the cause has been stalled amid political interference and no state official has yet been held accountable over the August 4, 2020 tragedy.
Several heavily damaged grain silos that became a grim symbol of the disaster collapsed last week, and more are dangerously close to coming down, experts warn.
“I hope that seeing the silos fall will give people the will to fight for justice, to battle with us,” said Tatiana Hasrouty, who lost her father in the blast.
Politicians “are doing everything in their power to stop the investigation” into the explosion of the fertiliser, she said.
The mega-blast was a nightmarish moment in the chaotic history of Lebanon, which is mired in its worst-ever economic crisis marked by blackouts, runaway inflation and widespread despair.
When protesters in three separate marches starting from 1200 GMT Thursday later converge at the port, they will smell the smoke wafting from the silos where fermenting grain is smouldering in the blistering summer heat.
‘A nightmare’
The enormous explosion two years ago was felt as far away as Cyprus and sowed the kind of devastation normally caused by wars and natural disasters.
It further scarred the crisis-tested population and accelerated a massive exodus that recalls the flight during the 1975-1990 civil war.
Source : france24
