Rescue teams in
Beirut started digging into the bomb blast site on Friday September 4, to check for signs of life, 30 days after a
massive explosion destroyed much of the city’s downtown coastal area.
The search operation
comes after rescue teams detected movement deep within debris on Thursday. On
August 4, a massive explosion tore through Beirut’s port killing 190 people,
injuring more than 6,000, and leaving more than 300,000 displaced from their
homes.
The blast was linked
to nearly 3,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate which had been stored at Beirut’s
port for six years.
George Abu Musa,
operations head at the Lebanese Civil Defense, revealed on Friday that the
operation was “less than half a meter” away from a possible survivor’s
location.
Rescuers worked
under floodlights in humid summer conditions to remove portions of a wall with
a crane as a crowd stood by, anxious for updates.
According to Eddy
Bitar co-founder of Live Love Beirut, an NGO helping with rescue efforts,
thermal imaging carried out on Friday morning local time showed body heat in
the rubble, while rescuers also detected eight breaths per minute amid the
debris.
According to rescuers,
the teams heard 18 breaths per minute under the rubble after asking a crowd of
about 200 onlookers to be silent so their equipment could better detect any
breath or heartbeats of a possible survivor.
The search was
sparked by a rescue dog that passed the destroyed building with a Chilean
rescue team on Thursday and indicated signs of life, said Eddy Bitar, a local
non-governmental organization worker.
Thermal imaging
later showed two bodies — one small body curled up next to a larger body. A listening
device also registered a respiratory cycle of 18 per minute, Bitar said.
“There’s a small
chance that the person is still alive,” Bitar said.
Thursday’s rescue
search was temporarily suspended over concerns that a wall could collapse and
endanger the lives of the rescue team, Beirut fire brigade officer Lieutenant
Michel El-Mur said.
After the search was
suspended on Thursday night, local time, a protest of around 100 people erupted
outside the site.
Tension continued to
grow by protesters until soldiers told them that the team and its equipment
would be returning to the site imminently.
Reports from the
blast area say a strong, putrid smell emanated from the destroyed building in
the aftermath of the blast. One woman said she repeatedly alerted authorities
about it and urged them to search the site.
“Two weeks ago we
were protesting here and we smelled what felt like ‘old blood’,” said Reine
Abbas to CNN.
“If they had checked back then, then the body would probably be alive today.”“But this is Lebanon.”
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