Customer: "Is this bike still for sale?" "Yes, it is" "What's the lowest you'll go on it?" "2 mph, anything less than that and you'll tip over"
The worry is , and reports are starting , that some will think its aNuke from Israel or the US because of the mushroom cloud effect . Someone needs to step in quick and assure everyone that horrific as it is , it seems like an accident .
What gets me is they have known about it since 2014 , and now they are looking for someone to blame !
It’s a port. They have warehouses for import storage like any shipping port. Beirut isn’t really that big of a city too. It would be just as close to residential or urban areas in a lot of coastal cities. Look at the layout of Southampton. I remember the warehouse fires there which left smoke smothering Eastleigh, Winchester and further. Fortunately it was children’s toys and not anything more volatile like flour, fireworks or fertiliser. The whole thing is heartbreaking. Lebanon is constantly lurching from crisis to crisis but the Lebanese families I meet and work with are the best. Even the ones I only have a loose professional relationship with would be ready to pick up the phone and do anything to help you, morning or night. Beirut is a magical city. I’ve been a few times and it’s always an amazing experience. Great city, people, history, nightlife. The terrain! Mountains, farms, city, beaches, coastline. Even skiing in the winter. Hands down best cooking in the world too. Their restaurants beat the pants off anything in any food culture. Devastating to see it get flattened, yet again. Lebanese response to generational trauma has always been “we’ll be back”. They partied during civil war, terrorism and economic disaster. Even their anti-government protests were full on raves with DJs! I really fear that in the current circumstances, this is a hammer blow too many. The city is practically windowless. People were already struggling to afford basic supplies and medical services were swamped. This has ****ed any chance they had.
My grandparents lived there for about 10 years when he was in the RAF. They fell in love with it and when I came to the Middle East for the first time they kept telling me how important it was that I go. They were not wrong. The food though. Jesus Christ. It’s French culinary traditions mixed with Arab dining culture in a country with a wide range of nationalities. Bad restaurants do not survive. So there’s gourmet street food, quality ingredients and cooking. Family meals with a guest last for hours and if you don’t eat enough an old lady will probably appear and force feed you until you break.
Just spoke to our neighbours who are from Beirut. They’re obviously devastated. The talk is that the nitrates were left there after a company or government contractor imported them and then went under before the shipment was addressed. There’s so many instances of that there in the past 5 years. Thankfully Red Crescent has a lot of support and is ready to go there. I’ve seen photos of pallets full of medical supplies that left Kuwait this morning heading there (it was almost funny to see all the boxes labelled as “Gifts” like they were according a customs charge). But the recovery from this, their financial crisis and Covid... that country is on a long, hard and likely very bloody path. So sad. They’re cursed. So often caught in the crossfire of other conflicts or victims of random existential horror.
Thanks for all the background information SiK. Hope the UK weighs in with some support. I expect a disaster fund will be set up to receive donations.
I suspect he was told it was one possibility and he leapt onto it being the only possibility. You would think just once (on the basis of sheer chance) he would be right or sound sensible, but no.....
More information on why the stuff was there now. A Russian shipping company was hired to take it to another destination and had to stop in Beirut. The ship was held by the authorities because it was essentially a very large floating bomb. The owner of the ship seems to have decided to abandon it (with crew) in Beirut. They were stranded without pay and had a horrendous ordeal getting the government to help repatriate them. The chemicals were put into a warehouse but never dealt with by the government (naturally).
