Beirut’s Bloody Explosion
Beirut’s Bloody Explosion Ehab El Okady | Al Jazeera Correspondent - Lebanon
After a short stint in south Lebanon covering the standoff between Hezbollah fighters and Israel, I returned to Mount Lebanon, 20km from the capital, to enjoy a holiday with my wife and seven-year-old son. We woke up to confusion; a giant blast – bigger than a ballistic missile attack, bigger even than the car bomb that had killed former prime minister Rafik Hariri – in the heart of Beirut. It was the Beirut port explosion and it had been heard as far away as Cyprus. A huge cloud of smoke enveloped my city. We were all gripped by fear. My wife kept repeating the name of our 14-year-old daughter, who had decided to remain in the capital with her friends. All communication lines were cut and all my attempts to reach our daughter on the phone or Al Jazeera’s bureau were in vain. We stood in total shock and confusion. Suddenly, my wife found a text message on her phone; our daughter had reached home a few minutes earlier. All I could think of at that moment was to rush to our house and look for her. The building’s façade was destroyed and the windows were shattered, but our daughter was safe – huddled up in the stairwell with our neighbours.
We all ventured out to assess the damage and find out what had happened. News started to trickle in. The explosion had ripped through the port and the heart of the capital, where Al Jazeera’s bureau is located. Unable to speak to any of my colleagues, I feared the worst. I felt relieved when I received an email from the office. Immediately, I drove towards it. All I could see along the road was buildings without windows or doors; glass shattered everywhere. Apart from the ambulance sirens that blared all around, the bustling capital was shrouded in silence. Finally, I arrived. The office building was damaged, our studio with its equipment was destroyed. Some of my colleagues had been injured. The Al Jazeera English cameraman was trapped in the lift. It was total chaos. We quickly formed teams and started deploying. My team rushed to the nearest hospital to the port. It was badly damaged. The army personnel deployed in the vicinity demanded we leave as the danger was still imminent. Ambulances were transporting the wounded to other functioning hospitals. Our team headed to one of the hospitals relatively far from the blast site. The scenes were horrific:
nurses resuscitating the victims; the injured brought in by the dozens; the emergency unit turned into an operation theatre; more injured piled up in the corridors; the morgue full and the number of deaths rising; family members searching for their missing loved ones. The blood bank ran out of stock after only an hour. The hospital was no longer able to receive any casualties. Ambulance crews were directed to other hospitals outside the capital. Even the patients
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