Search and rescue teams, firefighters and medics on Friday continued to comb through what remains of the seaport of Beirut, competing for space with men who were not wearing uniforms or displaying official status, and who several observers said were directing cleanup efforts.
As international rescue teams arrived in the Lebanese capital to help with the recovery, the scene of the explosion appeared increasingly frantic, with ambulances and unmarked vans repeatedly entering the site.
A Dutch team that had just arrived in Lebanon was initially kept away by Lebanese officials who insisted the sniffer dogs they brought with them were not allowed.
Photo: Reuters
“Then they sent them to parts that didn’t really matter,” one senior official said. “It has raised the suspicions of many here. Hezbollah have sent their people, and everyone is speculating why?”
As a massive recovery effort slowly gathers momentum, how flimsy sheds at the entrance to the Lebanese capital could have been deemed safe for an enormous stockpile of one of the world’s deadliest explosives, was being heatedly thrashed out.
Just as hotly debated was how a political class blamed for the debacle could be trusted with finding answers.
As anger mounted, one of the country’s leading broadcasters, LBC, announced it would no longer broadcast any political speeches or statements by leaders about a promised probe into the catastrophe.
The unprecedented boycott of Lebanese leaders and officials meant neither speeches by Lebanese President Michel Aoun nor Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah were broadcast on LBC on Friday.
“The capital of Beirut was destroyed and you’re still trying the same sort of evasive tricks,” LBC chairman Pierre Daher said. “You cannot continue this way. Let this be a message to you.”
Aoun has rejected any international probe into the catastrophic Beirut port blast, saying a missile or negligence could have been responsible.
The entrenched ruling class has come under fire once again since Tuesday’s explosion, which killed at least 154 people and devastated swathes of the capital.
The revelation that a huge shipment of hazardous ammonium nitrate had languished for years in a warehouse in the heart of the capital served as shocking proof to many Lebanese of the rot at the core of their political system.
Even Aoun admitted that the “paralyzed” system needed to be “reconsidered.”
He pledged “swift justice,” but rejected widespread calls for an international probe, telling a reporter he saw it as an attempt to “dilute the truth.”
A former port worker said that he had been told four years ago to move 30 to 40 nylon bags of fireworks into the warehouse containing the ammonium nitrate — a decision he said he had opposed at the time and, along with other colleagues, continued to protest.
Yusuf Shehadi, who left his job six months ago, but who on Tuesday spoke to some of his former colleagues, said workers were attempting to fix a gate outside warehouse 12 with a welder ahead of the blast.
“This was at 5pm, and after 30 minutes they saw smoke. Firefighters came, and so did state security. Everyone died. It is my belief that this repair work led to this catastrophe,” Shehadi said.
“But there were 30 to 40 nylon bags of fireworks inside warehouse 12. Customs confiscated the fireworks around 2009, 2010. I was a supervisor of the forklift, we stored the fireworks in hangar 12, and, around 2013, customs seized large amounts of chemicals [ammonium nitrate]. They were stored in the same hangar,” he said.
“This was a disaster waiting to happen,” he added.
Shehadi said he was talking to Imad al-Zahradin, a guard at the port, on Tuesday.
“We were having a chat about the union and work in general, and he told me that they were fixing the gate of hangar 12,” Shehadi said.
Al-Zahradin was one of the 137 people killed in the blast, including the entire firefighting team and numerous port workers, many of whom had been Shehadi’s colleagues.
Video of a fire seconds before the enormous explosion ravaged east Beirut appeared to show a chain reaction of small explosions, resembling fireworks.
“They were exactly where I left them,” said Shehadi. “And when the fire got to them, it was the end.”
Additional reporting by AFP
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