Crisis-hit Lebanon reels from latest deadly explosion

World
By Editor_1
A man with severe burns sustained in an overnight fuel tank explosion in Lebanon's northern region of Akkar is carried on a stretcher from a helicopter, after being transported for treatment at the specialized unit of the Geitaoui hospital in the capital Beirut - ANWAR AMRO/AFP
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By Rouba el Husseini

BEIRUT -Lebanon reeled Monday (15) from a deadly explosion that burned alive people desperate to fill plastic containers with fuel in a country sinking ever deeper into darkness and chaos.

At least 28 people were killed when the petrol tank, surrounded by residents clamouring to fill their vehicles amid crippling shortages, blew up early Sunday (15) in the northern region of Akkar.

Lebanon’s latest tragedy comes as it grapples with an economic crisis described by the World Bank as one of the world’s worst since the 1850s.

Nearly 80 people were injured in the blast, medics said, many with burns that further overwhelmed hospitals struggling to function without electricity

On Monday, foreign countries and UN agencies were scrambling emergency aid to help exhausted health workers cope with the new influx of serious injuries and run DNA tests to identify charred remains.

A health ministry official told AFP that authorities were still trying to determine a final death count.

Shortages of key commodities have accelerated in recent days, leaving much of Lebanon struggling to source fuel, gas and even bread, with buying power pummelled by the currency losing more than 90 percent of its value on the black market.

Some of the country’s six million inhabitants now fear the internet and drinking water will be next to disappear.

The blast in Akkar, one of the poorest parts of the country, was another landmark in Lebanon’s descent from a regional beacon of modernity into state collapse.

The scenes of horror piled trauma on a country still coming to terms with last year’s cataclysmic Beirut port explosion that killed more than 200 people and disfigured the city.

In Tripoli’s al-Salam hospital, which received the bulk of patients burned by the Akkar blast, 23-year-old Iqaz Saqr wept.

Her husband and a brother, a 20-year-old livestock farmer named Abdul Rahman, were both caught in the explosion.

Abdul Rahman was battling for his life.

“My brother was out of gasoline. He just needed a small amount so he could go and get boxes of feed for his sheep,” Iqaz told AFP.

“My husband too just wanted gasoline so he could … provide for me and our daughter.”

Across Lebanon, with no more than two hours a day of mains electricity supply, many shops and restaurants remain closed, unable to source fuel for their generators.

Many private and public sector employees have been told to stay home and most of the rest have often been doing the same for lack of transport options.

Stuck in an endless queue of cars at a Beirut petrol station, Mohammed, who did not want to give his full name, said he could see no light at the end of the tunnel.

“We need to leave Lebanon. We all need to get out,” said the 30-year-old engineer. “God help those who stay.”

The state declared a national day of mourning over the Akkar blast, a move unlikely to offer much solace to a population that blamed those very authorities for the tragedy.

Angry protesters on Sunday torched the home of the landowner on whose plot the tragedy unfolded, accusing him of involvement in a hoarding and smuggling scheme allegedly covered up by top officials.

Petrol station owners have been accused of hoarding fuel ahead of an expected price hike, causing crippling shortages and spawning a ruthless black market that is enriching a small cartel and choking the rest of the country.

On Monday, the army said it had seized several hundred tonnes of fuel across the country for redistribution to neighbourhood generators, hospitals and bakeries.

A few dozen people protested on Sunday in front of the Beirut home of Najib Mikati, who was recently appointed prime minister-designate.

The country’s richest man is the third person to try to form a government in the aftermath of the Beirut port blast last August, since when ministers have served in a caretaker capacity only.

After meeting President Michel Aoun on Monday, Mikati said efforts were still underway to form a new government.

The deadlock is freezing international assistance to help haul Lebanon out of the abyss.

As every aspect of daily life unravels, sometimes deadly scuffles have broken out at petrol stations and many fear for their safety.

“I feel like crying about everything,” said Farah, a 21-year-old living in the mountainous Chouf region.

“I’m scared we’ll get to the point where we can’t leave this country, even from the airport… We only have the sea left. I feel we’ll drown trying to get out.”

– Agence France-Presse

 

 

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