Beirut: A year and a minute later
On August 4, 2020, Tamara Saade, a Lebanaese journalist and photographer, was not far when a large amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the port of the city of Beirut exploded, causing at least 218 deaths, US$15 billion in property damage and leaving an estimated 300,000 people homeless. In an exclusive article for The Business Standard she shares her experience of the day and emotions she struggles with on the first anniversary of the tragedy
On August 4, 2021, I find myself trying to remember each and every of my steps on that same date, a year ago. Recreating every move, looking for coincidences or signs, anything that will help me understand the immensity of the unnamable, of the thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate detonating in Beirut's port.
Where was I last year on 4 August, 2020 in Beirut? What was I doing during the week leading up to it?
Some things haven't changed in the country, but simply evolved or worsened. Covid cases remain high in Lebanon despite the multiple lockdowns, vaccination campaigns, and efforts to limit the pandemic.
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Last year, Lebanon was under a partial lockdown, where restaurants, bars, and shops were closed Thursday through Monday, and the country could resume normal activities on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
I keep comparing the number of Covid cases this year to the last. I keep thinking that because of that partial lockdown, many offices were closed, thus less people roamed Beirut's downtown. Many lives were saved, but more than 200 too many were taken away.
The Lebanese Lira, which has been progressively devaluing since 2019 also reached a peak during the summer of 2020, and even worsened in the summer of 2021. Another similar pattern I can't help but compare. Of course the extremely humid and hot weather of Lebanon's suffocating summer remains the same throughout the years. The smothering heat we're experiencing today, without power or electricity, reminds me of the intensely warm first days of August.
Teeny tiny similarities between last year and this year come to haunt me. A few days before August 4, 2020, before the few seconds that changed the course of Lebanon's history forever, I was seeing a couple of friends. Seeing those same friends in the same setting a year later brings back bittersweet memories. We look at each other, with an uneasy gaze, and mumble : "Do you remember, this time last year we were also hanging around, a few days before the blast? Who would have thought?"
And we chuckle, nervously, before fearing the same scenario might happen again. "Do you remember, we had planned to go out to a restaurant that August 4 afternoon, but we had a last minute change of plan," another friend recalls. "What if we had actually gone to that restaurant, a few meters away from the port? What would have happened?"
As we commemorate the August 4 blast, where tons of ammonium nitrate detonated in Beirut's port, and killed more than 200, there's an uneasy feeling in the city.
Grief, anger, injustice, incomprehension, and fear.
But the worst of it all, is that the past year Lebanon couldn't grieve in peace. Lebanon couldn't mourn the people it lost, it couldn't grieve the explosion, it could barely process the negligence of its political class, as it was too busy surviving, making it to the end of the day.
The country is witnessing one of the worst economic and sanitary crises. More than half its population now lives under the poverty line, and the minimum salary wage flirts with forty to fifty dollars per month. Most pharmacies don't carry the necessities, because of gas shortages lines last up to three hours, and rare are the apartments who benefit from barely a few hours of electricity per day.
As I'm writing this, I am torn. There is only so much grief I can carry around with me and I find myself unsure whether I should mourn the explosion of August 4 that gutted my city and killed so many, or the slow death we're all experiencing simply by being alive in Lebanon right now.
If trauma compounds and layers, Lebanon is now sitting on decades and decades of post traumatic disorders, of unburied victims and unresolved injustices.
On Wednesday 4 August, 2021, I feel heavy. Lost. Furious. Tired.
When the clock strikes 6 pm this afternoon, I will look out the window, my body will crisp up and my muscles will contract, maybe to try to protect myself. I will ask my friends to tell me where they are, to share their locations during that afternoon, to maybe stay away from windows and doors.
At 6:05, I will take a deep breath, try to control my heartbeat, and make sure my cat is safely asleep somewhere in the house.
When the clock strikes that dreaded 6:07, I will exhale loudly and slowly, clench my jaw, and maybe crack my knuckles. I will put my hands up to my ears to protect them from a potential loud noise, look up at the sky, and watch out for a pink cloud.
But then the clock will strike 6:09, 6:34, and 7:45. Eventually the day will pass, and the sun will set. Once night falls on August 4, 2021, we will be entering our first year in Lebanon since the explosion, with no lead, clue or answer to what happened that day.
No matter the number of days, minutes, or years that will pass, as long as the political class who was in power when the blast happened remains in power, the country will keep drowning in sorrow and lamentation. Life in Lebanon might move forward, but it will definitely not move on.
The port might be cleaned up of the vestiges of the blast, restaurants back on their feet, and houses rebuilt, but no layer of paint will erase the traces of blood on the walls.
Where do we stand a year later? We haven't moved. We kept sinking and sinking until August 4 became one of the many dates we mourn, along with the friends and family who emigrated, the sense of normalcy that vanished, and the will to plan further than a week ahead.
A week before the commemoration of the first anniversary of the Beirut Blast, I tried to avoid any pattern, any repetition, any echo of that black day. May we never forget, and may we never live that fear again.
