WORLD HEADLINE: BEIRUT, Lebanon- Up to 300,000 left homeless by Beirut blast: Governor

BEIRUT (AFP) – A huge blast in Beirut has left 300,000 people homeless and caused damage across half of the city estimated to cost more than US$3 billion (S$4.1 billion), its governor told AFP on Wednesday (Aug 5).

“I think there are between 250,000 and 300,000 people who are now without homes,” said Mr Marwan Aboud, adding that the estimated cost of the damage from Tuesday’s explosion was between US$3 billion and US$5 billion dollars.

Engineers and technical teams have yet to conduct an official assessment, he said, adding that damage from the blast in the port area seems to have extended to over half of the city.

The blast on Tuesday – blamed on an unsecured store of ammonium nitrate at the Beirut port – devastated entire neighbourhoods, killed over 100 people and left up to 300,000 without homes.

It was the latest blow to a country already reeling from an unprecedented economic crisis and political turbulence.  And there is growing exasperation with the powerful elite across Lebanon’s different confessional communities.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Lebanon Thursday, the first world leader in Beirut after the port blast that wreaked destruction across the capital, as France seeks to provide its former colony with urgent disaster aid.

“I will go to Beirut tomorrow to bring the Lebanese people a message of fraternity and solidarity from the French,” Macron wrote on Twitter.  “We will discuss the situation with the political authorities,” he added.

The president’s Elysee Palace office said Macron will “meet all political actors”, including President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Hassan Diab.

Both sides will be hoping the visit goes more smoothly than a trip last month by France’s top diplomat Jean-Yves Le Drian, who scolded Lebanon’s political elite for being too “passive” in the face of an economic crisis compounded by the coronavirus pandemic.

In the aftermath of that visit, Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti resigned in protest at his government’s lack of crisis management.

Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz said Wednesday at least 21 French citizens were injured in the blast and prosecutors had opened a probe into “negligent injury” using their jurisdiction to investigate acts committed abroad.
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