Lessons from the Lebanon bomb explosion

I was with my parents at the family home watching CNN on August 4, 2020, with Christiane Amanpour, the British-Iranian TV presenter asking questions to a reporter on a topic related to the Coronavirus in the United States. As the person was about to respond, suddenly “Breaking News!” I told myself, so some news can replace Coronavirus. The next thing was footage of a huge fire burning. A bomb exploded in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon! Ben Widman, a CNN correspondent in Beirut who was writing from his studio, said the explosion shattered windows and shattered the office. He said it felt like an “earthquake.” He was visibly surprised, as the tremor caused by the explosion caused windows to be blown out in the terminal building at Beirut International Airport, which is about nine kilometers from the port.

The explosion also affected homes, restaurants and buildings flattened to the ground, as well as some foreign diplomatic missions, including the German and Norwegian embassies, and the ruins in Cyprus were felt about 200 kilometers away. Seismologists say it’s equivalent to a 3.3-magnitude earthquake. In its wake, the explosion left 157 dead, 5,000 wounded, and 300,000 homeless. We soon thought we were a terrorist attack. But as more information became available, this thought was abandoned. According to information gathered by the Washington Post from legal documents, court correspondence, and what public officials are doing, a Moldovan cargo ship carrying 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate arriving from Georgia bound for Mozambique in 2013 made an unplanned stopover in Beirut. .

Due to the dangerous nature of its cargo, port officials transported the ship’s contents to port warehouses, pending “auction and / or appropriate disposal.” But despite the warnings about it, nothing was done until the tragedy struck.

In response to a question by the BBC about the possible cause of the explosion, Lebanese Minister of Economy and Trade Raoul Nehme said: “I think it is inefficiency and very bad management and there are a lot of responsibilities from the administration and perhaps previous governments.”

In Lebanon, ports are a treasure trove for criminals, militias and politicians. There are many interests that the various security forces in the ports must protect, which are controlled by different political elements. They are the same people who decide who gets a government job and who doesn’t. And the whole system is notorious for nepotism and corruption.

The impact of that explosion will have a huge impact on a country that has a lot of problems spoiling it. About 85 percent of the nation’s grain went with the blast as it also houses the main grain silo. Worse, the goods could no longer enter the port. Lebanon is an import-dependent country like Nigeria with 80 percent of consumption as an import, and 90 percent of its wheat as imports. Bread is an essential food. The country went through months of economic troubles. Her money is down. Purchasing food, medicine and fuel is a huge challenge. United Nations agencies are already warning of a humanitarian crisis, and there is the Corona virus, which has increased the pressure on its health system. Really for Lebanon, it never rains but it rains. There are already concerns that there may be dangerous gases in the air from the explosion.

Some Beirut port officials have been placed under “house arrest” as investigations continue. For a country plagued by entrenched corruption and cronyism, it remains to be seen whether or not those responsible will be punished, and at the same time, the country is in dire need of assistance moving forward. Aid is already underway from France, Russia, Israel, Iran, Jordan, Qatar and Kuwait. Being “at the expense of aid” may harm national dignity, but it must hold the hands that are extended to it. It can be used as a lift. Some young Nigerians who were watching the bomb explode may see it as something far away. But it is similar to what happened in Lagos on January 27, 2002. On that fateful day, a fire broke out in a market in the street around the Ikeja military camp, where the families of the soldiers also lived. But the fire quickly spread to where it was a large store of explosives, causing a large explosion that shook Lagos. Bomb explosions were occurring in sequence. With each explosion, the windows of the houses shook several kilometers from the explosion. It caused tremendous devastation and created fear, prompting some terrified Lagos residents to run down the Lagos Canal to face their sudden death. Some thought it was Armageddon and shocked the churches.

In one of the hospitals I was working at at the time, a man who was bleeding profusely from a wound to his skull was already losing strength. He was riding a commercial tricycle (Kiki Marwa), when he heard the explosion and tried to run away and collided with a car, and a shrapnel of his windshield cut his scalp. I revived and sewed it. But he needed blood. I referred him to a general hospital. I was hoping it would be good for him, as at least 1,100 people lost their lives because of what happened that day, and like the Lebanon explosion, about 5,000 people were injured with varying levels of injuries, and more than 12,000 people were displaced. Approximately 20,000 people fled their homes and returned several weeks later.

Something similar happened again, but fortunately on a smaller scale, when an explosion on Boxing Day 2012 shook a market on Lagos Island. It was a building storing fireworks known as a knockout. Only one person died, but more than 30 people were injured, and millions of naira of goods and property were destroyed.

We will not say that we will learn from what happened in Lebanon, we have tried it before. We still regularly see them in gas pipeline explosions that also kill many people.

Lessons are pure like daylight. If there are places anywhere in Nigeria that currently contain stocks of explosives of any form, be they government, private organizations or even individuals, this is a wake-up call to check again for any precautionary measures, to avoid any disasters.

A stitch in time not only saves nine people, it can also save lives.

Dr. Cosmas Uduina, Lagos

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