NFPA Journal - Winter 2021 - 40

Perspectives
response. " I couldn't sleep for many nights. All I
could think about was that I and everyone I love
were nothing but lucky survivors. "
Sawsan is head of fire and life safety for Dar
INTERNATIONAL
'CITY IN
A COMA'
MORE THAN A YEAR AFTER A CATASTROPHIC
EXPLOSION ROCKED AN ALREADY FRAGILE BEIRUT,
THE CITY STRUGGLES TO REBUILD AS AN ECONOMIC
CRISIS THREATENS TO PARALYZE THE NATION
OF LEBANON. A FIRE AND LIFE SAFETY EXPERT-
AND BEIRUT NATIVE-TALKS ABOUT LIFE IN THE CITY,
HER WORK, AND THE CHALLENGES OF MAINTAINING
A SAFETY CULTURE IN AN URBAN SOCIETY ON THE
BRINK OF COLLAPSE.
Interview conducted and edited by Scott Sutherland
S
The view from a
damaged building
of Beirut's port
the day after an
immense explosion
ripped through the
city last August.
The effects of the
blast, coupled with
economic collapse
and the threat of
renewed sectarian
violence, have
pushed Lebanon to
its deepest crisis in
decades.
GETTY IMAGES
awsan Dahham was just opening
the door to her Beirut apartment
when the explosion hit. It was a few
minutes after 6 p.m. on August 4,
2020, and as she entered the apartment
she felt the floor begin to move beneath her.
For a moment she thought it might be an earthquake,
but then the force of the blast hit the
building in a cacophony of shattering glass and
toppling furniture. Then there was screaming, and
people crying out that they feared the city was
under attack. But there were no more blasts, and
within minutes media reports began to emerge
that there had been a massive explosion in the
city's port. Television images showed dead and
wounded people on the streets and widespread
devastation throughout the city. " I was heartbroken
and afraid, " Sawsan said of her immediate
40 | NFPA JOURNAL * WINTER 2021
Al-Handasah, an international engineering, architecture,
and planning firm based in Beirut. Her
professional expertise means she has a keen
understanding of how the disaster unfolded, its
devastating impact, and the challenges the city
faces in its recovery. A fire at a warehouse in the
city's port, the result of unregulated hot work,
had ignited a large
store of ammonium
nitrate: approximately
2,750 metric tons, or
more than 6 million
pounds, of the chemical
had been improperly
stored there since 2014.
Ammonium nitrate can
be highly combustible in
certain conditions when
NFPA.ORG/LEBANON
Watch a digital
recreation and analysis
of the sequence of
events leading up
to and including the
explosion, produced by
Forensic Architecture,
a multidisciplinary
research group at
Goldsmiths, University
of London.
exposed to fire, and the blaze in the warehouse,
which also contained fireworks, triggered a series
of explosions. The final cataclysmic blast was heard
200 miles away and was one of the largest nonnuclear
explosions ever recorded.
The explosion pulverized much of the busy port,
obliterating buildings, docks, vessels, containers,
vehicles, workers, and the firefighters who had
responded to the warehouse fire. The close proximity
of residential neighborhoods and commercial
districts to the port area meant that the heart
of Beirut took the full force of the blast, destroying
buildings up to two miles away. Sawsan's
home is located in the Verdun neighborhood, not
quite three miles (five kilometers) from the site
of the explosion; the blast sheared off the wall of
a balcony that Sawsan had converted as part of
her bedroom, sending it plummeting to the street
below. For days, all that remained of the bedroom's
exterior wall was a ragged opening that offered a
view of a decimated city reeling from an unprecedented
disaster. " We were lucky in a way that
the explosion happened later in the day-if it had
happened earlier, when people were at work, we
might have had 10 times the fatalities, " Sawsan
said. " If I'd been sitting at my desk at Dar, or if I'd
been out somewhere in the city, I would probably
be dead. " More than 200 people were killed in the
event, an estimated 7,000 were injured, and thousands
of buildings were damaged or destroyed.
Roughly 300,000 residents were left homeless.
Property damage was estimated at $15 billion.
http://www.NFPA.ORG/LEBANON
NFPA Journal - Winter 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - Winter 2021
