Two days after the violent explosions that reduced the Lebanese capital to a city in a state of emergency and in the grip of chaos, French President Emmanuel Macron went to Beirut on Thursday August 6.

He is the first head of state to travel to this country since the disaster on Tuesday. There he will be faced with an "apocalyptic" situation, hundreds of thousands of people brutally deprived of shelter and resources and a still provisional toll of at least 113 dead and 4,000 injured. 

Expected in Beirut at noon, Emmanuel Macron will visit the site of the disaster, meet with the main Lebanese officials and give a press conference around 6.30 p.m. local time before returning to France.

Several countries including France have already dispatched rescue teams and equipment to deal with the emergency after the double explosion presented as accidental by the authorities which devastated the port and much of the capital.

"The situation is apocalyptic, Beirut has never known that in its history," said the city's governor, Marwan Abboud, who burst into tears on Tuesday in front of the cameras in front of the devastated port. Up to 300,000 people are homeless according to him. A state of emergency was declared for two weeks.

Dozens of missing

The huge blasts, the worst experienced by Lebanon, were triggered by a fire that broke out in a warehouse that has housed some 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate for six years, "without precautionary measures", according to the authorities. They practically destroyed the port and devastated entire districts of Beirut, blowing windows for miles around.

An official source informed of the first results of the investigation into the causes of the disaster said that the explosion was the result of negligence and that this point had been examined several times by various commissions and by the courts without "nothing having happened. be done "to order the evacuation of these extremely hazardous materials.

According to Reuters, a ministerial source, the authorities have ordered the house arrest of port officials in charge of warehouses or monitoring the incriminated materials since 2014.

Dozens of people remained missing Wednesday, according to the government, while rescuers continued their search in the hope of locating survivors.

This tragedy strikes a country plunged for months in a very serious economic crisis, marked by an unprecedented depreciation of its currency, hyperinflation, massive layoffs and drastic banking restrictions.

Its effects have been further aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic, which in recent months has forced the authorities to confine its population for more than three months.

The UN Food and Agriculture Agency, FAO, now says it fears a problem with the availability of flour for Lebanon in the near future, as grain silos installed near the port have been gutted.

The anger of the Lebanese

In shock, the Lebanese shouted their anger at this catastrophe too many. "Go all! (...) You are corrupt, negligent, destructive, immoral. You are cowards. It is your cowardice and your negligence that killed people", launched a well-known Lebanese journalist, Marcel Ghanem, whose the television show enjoys a large audience. The hashtag "Hang them" was circulating on Twitter.

The large Lebanese diaspora has also demanded accountability. "This tragedy is further proof of the incompetence of the political class which has governed Lebanon for several decades," said Antoine Fleyfel, Franco-Lebanese philosopher and theologian, living in France.

According to security sources, port authorities, customs and security services were all aware of hazardous chemicals being stored at the port but mutually denied responsibility for the matter.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) for its part announced on Wednesday to postpone the reading of the judgment, scheduled for Friday, in the trial of four men accused of having participated in the 2005 assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister. Rafic Hariri, "out of respect for the countless victims" of the explosions.

With AFP

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