ports of the world
The port of Beirut, two years after the explosion
Audio 03:21
A view of the port of Beirut, August 3, 2022. AFP - IBRAHIM AMRO
By: Laure Stephan
4 mins
Two years to the day after the gigantic explosion in the port of Beirut, the families of the victims are demonstrating this Thursday in the capital.
Last Sunday, part of the port's grain silos collapsed, rekindling the disaster.
The popular Quarantine district, where much of the activity is linked to the port, has come back to life.
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From our correspondent in Beirut,
From Mazen Madi's office, we see the cranes of the container terminal of the port of Beirut.
The free zone is located a few hundred meters away.
For the entrepreneur, being settled in the Karantina district, more familiarly called the Quarantine district, is obvious.
“
We are in Karantina
, we have always been there.
Here the region is really strategic.
We are at the northern entrance to Beirut, very close to the port and it is practical when we have goods leaving the port.
»
So close to the port as two years ago, the double explosion will sow destruction and chaos and cause more than 200 deaths in this district mixing residential streets, maritime offices, warehouses and military barracks.
“
It was a disaster, there was a yellow fog, it was really the end of the world,
remembers Mazen Madi.
I managed to take my car to the hospital, because I was hit, but it wasn't serious, it was just a few shrapnel... We have no choice, we always have to start over and that's it. is what happened.
Everything has been renovated and the neighborhood has become much more beautiful.
»
The facades of the inhabited streets have been cleaned, but the emotion still surfaces when we talk about August 4, 2020 with the inhabitants.
As in the voice of Fadia Zaarour.
“
It's hard for anyone to forget a day like August 4, 2020. In this street, among those who died, there was my cousin Antoine;
my neighbor ;
a woman and her two daughters, the roof of their house collapsed on them.
And there were a lot of injuries.
Everyone has been injured here, whether lightly or seriously.
I know all the victims: we all know each other, we live like in a village.
»
"
The port will remain a symbol
"
Life took over.
On a field, children play football.
Two years ago, the same space was occupied by emergency aid distributions, which have packed up.
In the neighborhood of Quarantine also live many Syrians, who work in activities related to the port.
They too experienced the explosion in their flesh, with victims and damage.
And then there was the after.
"
After the explosion, the warehouse of the company where I work was destroyed,
" says Mohamed Sattouf, worker in the free zone
.
Another has been rebuilt, but it doesn't have the same storage capacity.
And the number of employees has decreased.
Work was at a standstill for about two months after the explosion, then resumed, but not as before, not as much.
Among the goods that we unload, there are some for Iraq, for Jordan.
»
The scene of the explosion at the port of Beirut has not been rehabilitated.
The warehouses still damaged are visible from the premises of Imad Costantine, a logistics operator.
“The
port will remain a symbol.
In the end, we are not a country of industry, or production, or agriculture, or even tourism: it lasts at best one or two months a year,
he specifies
.
All activity is focused on the port and the airport.
We are a small country.
»
A small country caught up in a serious economic and financial crisis which makes conversations heavy today.
It is to the past that Fadia Zaarour turns to evoke other memories at Quarantine.
“
When we were children, we used to go swimming in the sea, in one of the harbor basins, there was like a beach.
Everyone in the neighborhood went there
.
This is no longer possible today.
These are happy memories.
Each cared about the other.
Our childhood was happy.
And we lived through the whole war here, we didn't leave.
»
The bathing ended when the harbor was expanded after the Civil War.
In the projects on the table to rehabilitate the port of Beirut, some foresee a redevelopment of the Quarantine.
Their spells continue to be linked.
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