Deputy Fire Chief Ali Najem's green eyes have dark shadows. He points to the pictures of his ten colleagues hanging over the entrance to the fire station. Ten portraits of young, happy people. One woman, nine men. An experienced gang that always worked their 24-hour shifts together and put out fires all over Beirut. They trained together, ate together and watched TV series when they did not save lives.
At 17.55 on the evening of August 4, the alarm came here to the fire station in Karantina. Witnesses had seen smoke billowing from Beirut's port area. The security service received the message that it was a fire in a magazine with fireworks. The team accelerated towards the port and was quickly in place.
But something was wrong. Group leader Charbel Karam called the station. "There is a strange sound here and the fire is huge." He asked for reinforcements and all the firefighters on duty threw themselves down the fire bar on the station upstairs to the cars in the garage. Then came the bang. Contact with colleagues in the port was broken.
We go through a fire station where all the windows and several of the walls were blown out by the explosion in the harbor a little over a kilometer away. The devastation is difficult to comprehend. The shock wave that killed at least 180 people and injured several thousand lasted only a moment but managed to make 300,000 people homeless.
Documents show that officials in Lebanon's customs, military and the country's top political leadership knew that 2,750 tonnes of highly explosive ammonium nitrate were stored in the port in the heart of the city. It had been there for years. But no warning was ever issued, neither to the public nor to those sent straight to disaster.
Ali Najem steps over broken glass on the broken station of the fire station. Had not so many of his colleagues been in the cars in the garage, more of them would have been killed by the shock wave. The disaster increased our need for heroes. We so want to see a light in a meaningless explosion. Every day here I hear new stories; about the nun who drove around all night and took the injured to hospital in her car. Strangers who put pressure bandages on strangers, held wounds together with their hands and saved lives after the relentless advance of the pressure wave.
Stories of strength and courage in the midst of all destruction.
There is a notion of Beirut as the city that always rises like a phoenix from the ashes. Maybe it will be like that again. But at the same time I am experiencing a tiredness now in my neighbors. A desire not to always be the one who has to get up and rebuild.
Beirut firefighters hailed as martyrs, who selflessly sacrificed. But for their colleagues, Sahar, Ralf, Charbel and the others killed were also victims. They were the only ones sent into the harbor during an ongoing fire, directly against thousands of tons of potential explosives. Without warning. Even though the authorities knew.
Now their friends and families want to know why.