Lebanon
Beirut
| 格言：Berytus Nutrix Legum（貝魯特，法律之母） | |
 
貝魯特
在黎巴嫩的位置
|
2020年8月4日，貝魯特的港口附近發生劇烈爆炸，當時爆炸威力有蘑菇雲升起，造成嚴重的人員傷亡和建築損毀，港口功能與週邊建築幾近全毀，黎巴嫩政府宣布貝魯特進入維持2周的緊急狀態。
2020 explosions[edit]
On 4 August 2020, multiple explosions occurred in the port. Public Health Minister Hamad Hasan[a] reported that at least 135 people were killed and 5,000 were injured.[3] The explosions largely destroyed the port, including its infrastructure and warehouses.[4] Up to 300,000 people may have been rendered homeless, according to Beirut City Governor Marwan Abboud.[19] Damage estimates are in the billions of dollars.[6]
The initial explosion may have occurred in a fireworks warehouse, while a subsequent series of much larger blasts came from 2,750 tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate that had been stored for the preceding six years at a depot at the port,[9] specifically Hangar 12.[10]The ammonium nitrate had arrived at the port in September 2013, on board a Russian-owned, Moldovan-flagged cargo ship called the MV Rhosus. The vessel came from Georgia and was bound for Mozambique, but was abandoned by its owners and crew in Beirut.[10] In six letters over the next three years, port customs officials warned Lebanese authorities about the dangers of the storage of the chemical at the port and asked for authorisation to re-export it, turn it over to the Lebanese Army, or sell it to a Lebanese explosives company. However, no action was taken to remove the stockpile.[10][20]
黎巴嫩首都貝魯特港口大爆炸，至今已有超過 135 人死亡、至少 5,000 人受傷。《衛報》指，高達 30 萬人家園損毀，部份更不再宜居。貝魯特官員指意外現場還有大量失蹤者相信被埋於瓦礫中待救援。
總理哈桑·迪亞布 (Hassan Diab) 昨日指爆炸相信是由一批被扣押、無適當管理措施的至少 2,750 公噸硝酸銨 (ammonium nitrate) 引致。 CNN 翻查紀錄發現，這批硝酸銨相信是於 2013 年由一艘俄羅斯註冊的貨船 MV Rhosus 運入，原目的地是莫桑比克 (Mozambique) 。然而，該貨船所屬公司因財困而令貨船被迫停泊在貝魯特港口。現任海關總監 Badri Daher 曾多次警告貨船形同「浮水炸彈」，但貨船未有被港口當局安排離開。 CNN 指，前海關總監 Chafic Merhi 也曾在 2016 年去信審理案件的法官：「由於此儲存物品在不合適的氣候條件下會構成危險，因此我們再次要求港口當局立即重新出口貨物，以維護港口及其工作人員的安全。」...
Why Did Lebanon Let a Bomb-in-Waiting Sit in a Warehouse for 6 Years?
Yesterday’s explosion, which destroyed Beirut’s port, much of the city and countless lives, was the result of business as usual.
By Faysal Itani
Mr. Itani is a political analyst.
Aug. 5, 2020
My first summer job was at the port of Beirut. It was the late ’90s and I was just a teenager. I spent muggy months entering shipping data as part of an ambitious new program to move the port from analog to digital log keeping. It was as unglamorous as you would expect from a bottom-rung job in the bowels of a Middle East bureaucracy. But despite the heat and the monotony, there was optimism.
The port was critical infrastructure in an economy rejuvenating after 15 years of civil war. Digital log keeping was part of the future — and an attempt to introduce much-needed order and transparency to a recovering public sector. This was, after all, the same port that had been rendered unusable during the civil war by sunken vessels and unexploded ordnance, save for one area controlled by a militia.
The Lebanon that emerged from that rubble is gone, gradually choked by a cynical political class. Yesterday, it was finished off. The port of Beirut was blown up in an explosion that killed at least 100 people (and counting), wounded more than 4,000 and destroyed blocks of the city. Lebanon now faces a new type of catastrophe for which decades of war and political instability were poor preparation.
By all appearances the port disaster did not involve the usual suspects — Hezbollah, Israel, jihadist terrorism or the government of neighboring Syria. The truth seems to be both duller and more disturbing: Decades of rot at every level of Lebanon’s institutions destroyed Beirut’s port, much of the city, and far too many lives. It is precisely the banality behind the explosion that captures the particular punishment and humiliation heaped on Lebanon.
So far, Lebanese officials are in agreement about what happened, though it’s likely that more than one “official” account will emerge. After all, this is Lebanon, a country deeply divided by politics, religion and history. But here is what we know as of now, according to reporting by credible Lebanese media: Some 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate unloaded from a disabled vessel in 2014 had been stored in a port warehouse. Then yesterday, a welding accident ignited nearby fireworks — which caused the ammonium nitrate to explode.
Ports are prime real estate for political, criminal and militia factions. Multiple security agencies with different levels of competence (and different political allegiances) control various aspects of their operations. And recruitment in the civilian bureaucracy is dictated by political or sectarian quotas. There is a pervasive culture of negligence, petty corruption and blame-shifting endemic to the Lebanese bureaucracy, all overseen by a political class defined by its incompetence and contempt for the public good.
It’s unclear what combination of these elements let a bomb-in-waiting sit in a warehouse for almost six years, moved fireworks next to it and allowed irresponsible work practices to be carried out nearby. But the catastrophe, while exceptionally severe, is the result of business as usual in Lebanon. The country is familiar with explosions, and it is just as familiar with disasters caused by failures of public services: a garbage crisis that dates back to 2015, an environmental catastrophe in 2019 and power outages this year that last up to 20 hours a day.
The consequences of yesterday’s explosion will be even more serious than the immediate casualties and property damage. The main grain silo, which holds some 85 percent of the country’s cereals, was destroyed. Even more, the port will no longer be able to receive goods. Lebanon imports 80 percent of what it consumes, including 90 percent of its wheat, which is used to make the bread that is the staple of most people’s diets. About 60 percent of those imports come through the port of Beirut. Or, at least, they did.
The timing couldn’t be worse. An economic crisis has devastated Lebanon for several months. The country’s currency has collapsed, a problem that is itself a result of years of mismanagement and corruption. Hundreds of thousands of people can no longer buy fuel, food and medicine. As Lebanese have seen their savings wiped out and their purchasing power disappear, a new vocabulary appeared among even my optimistic Lebanese friends and family. To describe the country, they began using words like “doomed” and “hopeless.”
And the coronavirus crisis has placed greater pressure on the health sector. After yesterday’s explosion, hospital staff were reportedly treating injuries in streets and parking lots. The explosion may well put Lebanon on the path to a food and health catastrophe not seen in the worst of its wars.
Lebanon’s political class should be on guard in the weeks ahead: Shock will inevitably turn to anger. But I fear that old habits die hard. These politicians are well practiced in shifting the blame. I don’t expect many — if any — high-level resignations or admissions of responsibility.
Will there be a revolution? An uprising of anger? Any revolutionary impulse has to compete with tribal, sectarian and ideological affiliations. For that matter, so do the facts: Even if a single official version of the port incident is presented (and even if it is true), some will not believe it. Paradoxically, our distrust of our politicians makes it harder to unite against them.
These are real obstacles. Yet there has never been more urgency for reform and accountability, beyond the likely scapegoating of midlevel officials. It is difficult to imagine such a concerted, sustained national movement because it has never materialized. But hunger and a collapse in health care may change that.
Lebanon — and the Lebanese — will need a rapid influx of external aid to stave off a critical food shortage and public health catastrophe. It seems to be coming, from countries across the Middle East and around the world. But this will not arrest the country’s decline. Emergency aid will only magnify public humiliation and helplessness. Yesterday’s explosion made clear that Lebanon is no longer a country where decent people can live secure and fulfilling lives.
As I watched videos of Beirut engulfed in smoke and checked in with my friends and family, I found myself thinking for the first time in a while of that summer when I worked at the port. The digitization project was completed, but parties who disliked the transparency it brought found ways to work around it.
Today, it’s irrelevant, of course. The port is destroyed. As for the Lebanese, they will be far more consumed by survival than progress.
Faysal Itani is a deputy director at the Center for Global Policy and adjunct professor of Middle East politics at Georgetown University.
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