Hope and Trust in Beirut
"Why did it take a Chilean dog and Chilean technology? Why did it take a month to check the building?How embarrassing is that?""We told you two weeks ago there is a soul there, but we heard nothing from you [Lebanese authorities].""It was a happy ending [when the Chilean rescue team, after frantically digging, finally asserted that no one was there alive, under the rubble]. Did we really want to add another name to the list of people who unfortunately died in this? I look at it as a positive thing because we didn't have to add one more name. We didn't have to find another missing person.""We didn't stop until we exhausted every single option, and there wasn't even a 0.01% chance of anyone being down there."Melissa Fadiallah, Beirut activist"Unfortunately, today, we can say there's no sign of life inside of the building.""We detected breathing around 3 a.m., an exhalation. But after checking the area we realized that that exhalation was from our own rescue workers that had entered the first floor hours earlier. The device is very sensitive, therefore the minimal exhalation will be detected.""We would like to go everywhere [to search in the blast-destroyed areas of Beirut], but we are respectful of the governments and of the people. If they ask us to go anywhere, to ground zero [the port] or to a building where someone disappeared, that's where we're going."Francisco Lermanda, the head of Topos, a Chilean rescue team
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| Rescue workers return to search a destroyed building with the aim of finding a potential survivor in the aftermath of the Beirut blast on September 4, 2020 in Beirut, Lebanon. |
On Thursday, almost a month after the Beirut port exploded in two blasts caused by the dangerously inappropriate storage of a highly flammable material, rescue workers announced that their highly sensitive, specialized search-and-rescue equipment had again detected what was interpreted as a pulse emanating from the ruins of a collapsed building, and the detection of shapes of two human forms, one believed to be that of a child, who might yet be alive.
The pulse which registered at 18 beats per minute over 24 hours earlier, but another day saw the pulse slow to seven beats per minute by Friday morning, the leader of the Chilean rescue team of volunteers explained. Rescue operations resumed early on Friday in the hopes that a survivor might yet possibly be found from the devastation that had left close to 200 people dead, and thousands more injured, destroying buildings representing almost a third of Beirut.
A sniffer dog working with Topos, the Chilean rescue experts, had responded to a scent under rubble that had once been an elegant, yet dilapidated four-story house dating from the Ottoman era that had boasted a tequila bar on the ground floor. Late Thursday, Lebanese authorities declared a crane was needed to help in the excavation of the ruins, leading the search to be suspended briefly. Furious protesters at the scene threatened to continue the search on their own, so the decision to call it off was rescinded.
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| Rescue workers use a crane to lift concrete slabs from a destroyed building as they search for survivors on September 4, 2020 in Beirut. |
When news of the possibility that someone had survived after a month buried under the impossible mountain of rubble that had once been a four-story building was received by an anxious public, euphoria was high. At the same time people turned in accusation against the Lebanese authorities search and rescue operations, and its perceived lack of rigour. It was just that very collapsed building under which signals were being received of a potential survivor urgently needing rescue, that had been the subject of countless photographs and yet it seemed to have escaped a serious effort in search and clearing of debris.
Multiple times the people in the area had informed authorities that they had detected the distinctive odour of a decomposing body emanating from the ruins, yet no one had taken the trouble to check, said Melissa Fadlallah. Earlier, a French rescue team had repored that its sniffer dog detected an odour at the scene a week earlier, despite which no one had followed through, according to Edward Bitar of the group Live Love Lebanon, giving aid in the massive rescue effort.
He had been reluctant to raise expectations that it was possible someone might yet had been discovered alive. It was the Chilean team, however, whose lead had appeared to uncover the presence of a still-living person trapped in an unforgiving mountain of rubble. The Chileans who had found renown internationally when they found a survivor of the Haitian earthquake after 27 days had elapsed from earthquake to discovery. But then, after all, there was no living survivor to be rescued, after all.
"I love what the Chileans did. I have the utmost respect for them. But we need to give the Civil Defense more credit. We're forgetting that these people are actually volunteers and that if someone is going to take their time to do what they do and sacrifice themselves for the rest of us, hats off.""If there ever was a reason for me not to leave the country -- because I have been thinking about it -- it's because of people like Youssef Mallah [A civil defence volunteer who had berated activists for their lack of trust in local rescue workers]."Melissa Fadlallah
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| Rescue workers clear rubble from a destroyed building with the aim of finding a potential survivor in the aftermath of the Beirut blast. |
Labels: Beirut, Blast, Hope, Rescue Workers, Survivors
posted by Pieface @ Monday, September 07, 2020
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