Huge explosion in Lebanon, 4th Aug 2020

[yield]

2 years later, hope for justice in Beirut explosion fades
01/08/22

BEIRUT (AP) — It’s been two years since his 3-year-old daughter, Alexandra, was killed in a massive explosion at Beirut’s port — and Paul Naggear has lost hope that outrage over the disaster will bring justice and force change in Lebanon.

The investigation into one of the world’s biggest non-nuclear explosions has been blocked for months by Lebanon’s political powers. Many blame the Lebanese government’s longtime corruption and mismanagement for the tragedy, but the elite’s decades-old lock on power has ensured they are untouchable.

In fact, some of those charged in the probe were re-elected to parliament earlier this year.

Even as the wrecked silos at the port have been burning for weeks — a fire ignited by the fermenting grains still inside them — authorities seemed to have given up on trying to put out the blaze. A section of the silos collapsed Sunday in a huge cloud of dust.

“It has been two years and nothing’s happened,” Naggear, said of the Aug. 4, 2020 disaster, when hundreds of tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, a material used in fertilizers, detonated at the port. “It’s as if my daughter was just hit by a car.”