The freeman foon. By judy and Peter Blum Kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for americas neglected needs. And by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Outside source. A twoweek state of emergency ir declared in beut after last nights deadly explosion. A number of port officials have been placed under house arrest,t pending investn. Rescuers continue to sift through the rubble, searching for survivors. At least 135eople were killed. Many are still missing. Thousands were injured. You were here when this happened. Where you were standing would have made the difference between life and death. There have been rarkable stories of survival. We will hearm f a doctor whose hospital continued to work through the devastation. We had patients in the parking lot of t er and emergency doctors were rushing to them, trying to intubate. We were doing intimations in the parking lot. Help flood it inlo ed in from around the world, including from the u. S. And u. K. , while aid agencies rushed to offer assistance. Hello, welcomehe torogram. Only one place to start, of course, beit, lebanon. Authorities are struggling with at to do struggli to deal with the aftermath. You haveeen the pictures. This is the moment the explosion hit the city. This shows t scale of the destruction. The port has been flattened a major grain silo has been destroyed. Beiruts governor says up to 300,000 people are now homeless. Rescue workers are continuing to find survivors. The European Union is rushing equipment there to help. The red cross is setting up. The explosion killed at least 135 people and iured more than 5000 others. Lets speak now to our correspondent on the ground. Just tell us what is happening now. At the moment it is nighttime after a very longay of damage sessment, peoplerying to figure out whatappened to them, to their city, to the nation. To at this point, everything is coming to a very deserved rest. Course, behind me, you cannot see it at the moment, there is no electricity in the city. This is not entirely linked to the explosion. Darkness is setting in at th this is very much obvious in every single part of ty city and evngle street, every single neighborhood. Today was a daysif assesng t injured, wounded, and dead, and the rge numberf people who had become homeless or wasse propertyecome totally uninhabitable because of the damage and dtruction. So basically today, what the naaon is facing is that in split section second, because of the explosion yesterday, there are tens of thousands of people who cannot return to their homes. We have seen a lot of people opening their houses to strangers, to relatives, to frnds, but this is not a sustainable solution. The government really needs to work to find a mediumterm sustainable solution. Ple and a one thing is for sure, there will be a very large number of people who will not be able to return to their homes anytime soon. Thank you. Now, so many peoples lives have rtbeen ripped as she was just saying. I want to bring you one of she is at a hospital in beirut where her husbandov is ring from brain surgery after he was badly injured after the explosion. Cke c on her children and then tried to find her husband. I went to the t of the stairs and looked down. My husband was lying down, unconscious. Hi head was t the side in a pool of blood. On his legs the other two ladies in h these were safe. They were helping me. I was screaming. Ambulance but iul knew they never make it. Lets go through what we kw so far. This is the site of the explosion. You can see the damage in the righthand photo taken today. Theebanese government has announced a two week state of emergency. A number of officials who worked t port are being placed under house arrest. S the cabinet ked for Security Forces to ensure no ohe tampers withcene. There are reports that last was caused by 2700 tons of Ammonium Nitrate being stored uy. Heresa is what h after visiting the site. There are no words to describe the catastrophe which hit beirut yesterday which transformed it into a disaster stricken city. We are determined to investigate and hand outt punishmo those responsible. Have more details on exactly what happened. The explosion in beirut happenedbl in the worst pos place, right at the port, with a lot of buildings around, and the impact will be felt in several different ways. Hofirst, awave, leading to a sudden increase of pressure that would have killed people nearby. Then a wave of debris. Then a cloud of toxic gases and dust carried by the wind right over the city. There is growing anger over why such a large quantity of Ammonium Nitrate was stored in a builtuprea for so long. There are reports that between 2014 and 2017, Customs Officials sent six lterso the judiciary warning of the danger of leaving such a volatile chemical in place. As years passed, the chemical began to decomngse, and the s increased. Despite this, customs and governme widely failed to deal with the danger. This is 2016 customs memo warning that there is serious danger keepi these goods in these conditions. Here is what we have been able to piece together so far from online open urces. According to a database of ships and ports, a russian owned neral cargo vessel set sail from georgia to mozambique in september, 20 15, carrying almost 3000 tons of Ammonium Nitrate. It was inspected in beirut by port officers who found deficiencies and band it from sailing,esulting in it being stranded in beirut. The majority of the crew were patriatedth. Ammonium nitrate was later istoredn warehouse hangar 12, which according to videos of thw blas the epicenter of the explosion. A letter shared on social media indicates Customs Officials had warned of the risks associated with storing the explosives in hanger 12 on several occasio. A former british army counterterrorist bomb disposal specialist said it is not designed to be left in ports for several years and effectively discarded. Of course,ef in environments or conditions to degrade, dry out, that sort of thing, it should never have been stored in those conditions and certainly not colocated with fireworks. There is a much wider tontext s. Beirut has just lost its port right in the middle of the worst economic crisis in generations. Letsxplore that further. The blast comes as lanon h omen going through an unprecedented ec crisis. He will talk about that in a moment. In the immediate aftermath, it has placed pressure on Health Care System already struggling with the coronavirus pandemic. You seetr peoplng to get access to the hospital but being turned away by staff and the wounded being treated outside. Here is a pediatrician at st. George University Hospital. The hospital was full of patients, and it became completely nonfunctiing. We had to evacuate all the patients to the er floor and outside of the er. We did not have any electricity. We had patients who had arrest in the parking lot of the er, and emergency doctors were rushing to them, trying to intubate, and we were doing cycles of arrest on the patients in the parking lot. It was trulyy traumatic experience. Manof the staff themselves were hurt. The system wasspwamped. Two als were too damaged to be functional. Another two arenly partially working and doctors are running low on supplies. The blast decimat our stocks. Normally use in a month or two. All of beirut gets these materials from the port. It is still not clear what the longterm Health Effects of the explosion could be. Thaou have a lot of dust itself can be harmful, just in the a. Ifti people are wearing their masks for covid, they may need them for the dust. Lebanon is alsoacing an unprecedented economic crisis. They defaulted on a foreign debt payment for the first time in march. E value of the currency has been plummeting. Inflation on basic food goods has soared between septembernd may. Here is the director of the kearny middle east cenr. Incomes are collapsing. T people can to school. They cannot afford health care. On top of that, you have covid19. The Security Sector is suffering. It was just an exponential almost 50 of the population is below the poverty line. We were expecting more. People weretarting to go hungry. What has held us together so far is the amazing energy, lidarity exhibited throughout this. The joke until recently was this was was all we need is an earthquake. This is what remains of theco trys main grain silo, leaving the country with less than a months reserve. According to the economy minister, there is still enough flour to avoid a crisis. 300,000 people have been left homeless by e blast and the bill for repairing the damage is likely to be between 3 billion dollars 5 billion. Here is a tweet from a journalist. No, lebanon is not cursed. It is simply ruled by incompetent buffoons. What else would yoexpect . Another tweeted to the lebanese authorities should n be allowed to use this disaster to pressure the International Community for aid tt will throw a lifeline to the ruling elites that have been destroying us on a daily basis in various ways. So, just try to put into context for us the real anger toward the political class. Throughout the day, there has been an outpouring of anger on international and domestic media. There has been a call for the governor for the Prime Minister toesn. There are claims by officials that the explosion mightve been caused by fireworks. No one believed that explanation. Huge questions are being asked about how the government, customs forces and general tysecuould allow such a huge amount of a dangerous substance to stay in the port for such a long time. No doubt continuing about how authorities could leave that there for such a long time. Anger at politicians,nd also anger because of the state of the economy. Remind us h exact bad things are. Lebanon is currently the third most indebted nation in the world. Unemployment is soaring, as is poverty. There have been protests since last october, and on top of that, you have the covid19 ckdown, whi has impacted people even worse. Over 300,000 people have been left homeless. Lets talk about International Reaction to this crisis. France, one of lebanons key allies, has already sent planes full of medicalupplies and rescue workers. The french president will be in beirutur on ay. Here is what the British Foreign secretary said. We are going to stand by the lebanese people in their time of we are going to provide immediate response, assistance up to 5 million pounds, as well al expert med support. At is crucial at this time is that our support is tailored to the specific needs i just talked through with the lebanese Prime Minister. Promises of support. What kind of help does lebanon need rig now . There has been an outpouring of support from all over the world. Immediately after the explosion, we saw messages from the u. K. Prime minister and foreign minister, and most notably from sent planes loads of medical equipment and 500 people. This comes ahead of president macomb macrons visit tomorrow. Offersrom across the world have been qte heartening to see. Thank you for that. Stay with us here on outside source. Still to come, the critical government errors which led to many more people contracting covid19. damming report from ms here in the u. K. Then chils commission for england says schools should be the last places to close in any future lockdown. Thats aft pubs, restaurants, and nonessential shops. This report comes among fears of a second coronavirus spike as children in england are set to return to the classroom in september. The fact of the matter is the virus is with us. We have to find ways to adapt. We have to find ways to manage it. Children have been out of school now for six months, thesr bigget tion since world war ii. We know that many have not been learning at all. The most disadvantaged children are the ones falling further behind. This is something we have look at very seriously, and i want to make sure they are given protection. I dont want the default to be that schools are the ones that close. This is outside source, life from the bbc. A two week state of emergency has been imposed in beirut. Let get an update on coronavirus. There are now more than 18 million confirmed cases in 188 different countries. More than 700,000 people have lost their lives, whi more than 11 Million People have recovered from the virus outbreaks in brazil, the u. , and india are behind a significant portion of the worldwide total. Here in the u. K. , mps have criticized governments failure to bring in border restrictions earlier. Ey say mistakes accelerated the scale of the pandemic. The ministers say theygu were ed by the science. The final British Airways flightrom china to london in latern january, as ks learns as concerns about coronavirus began to grow. Officials lieved the virus was coming from asia. That proved to be wrong. A lot more ces came from europe. Now mps say the government shouldve implemented much tighter controls. By the time you get early march, other countries were starting to bring in muc stronger border measures. That should have rung alarm bells for ministers. They should have said y is our reaction so different . Wquakesh britons evacuated from wuhan and with britons evacuated from wuhan and quarantine late january, february arrivals were told to self isolate. In mar, all italy arrivals were told to self isolate. Crucially, this advice was not extended to spain and france. D later, spanish football fans gathered in liverpool for a Champions League fixture. On march 19, all country specific guidance was lifted and people were only told to self isolate if they had symptoms. The time there was attempt toat assess wheer blanket restrictions would do too much damage to the economy. Officials argued in march that if the virusas spreading in the u. K. Anyway, there was no point restriceonge arriving without symptoms. Quarantine was not introduced until june 8. The advice that was cle is that when you have a certain infection rate, you bring in arantine measures. Thats what we did in june. Some believe moore should have been done at an earlier stage. Their srt there certainly should have been done more monitoring of people coming into the u. K. Ev people returning from italy who were askedqo serantine for 14 days, there was no actual monitoringha of tt situation to ensure people were doing it. France has begun compulsory air port testing. The u. K. Authorities are less keen, as it may miss people i e early stages of infection. Next,of a masxploding Ammonium Nitrate produces a blmot thas many times the speed of sound. At least four large hospitals i beirut were damaged and unable to take patients. One of the hardest hit was the st. George University Hospital where at least four nurses died and five doctors were wounded. At the precise moment of the blast, one woman had just gone into labor. Here is the footage filmed by her wasband. Ing, it does contain distressing images. We have beening to the i am p to say are safe andauma, recovering. They have a new baby boy. We were in the operation root , andhen we were moved to the laboroom. It was like 20 seconds, they were getting everything preparen everything was shatterthg, e glass, instruments, everything. Just so i am clear, at th moment, the baby had not arrived . Your wife was s. Ll in lab she was already prepared, like she was just heading into labor. And we see from your picture, e wall coming through. What went through yo mind . Everythig. Thought everybody was dead. I thought we were going to die. N adrenaline rush. And then the dust clears, anw wh left, what happened next . Nurses and doctors were on the ground. I was looking around to check, where imy wife . I was afraid she was hit or the baby was hit. My first thought w getting my wife out. I moved the bed outside, and then i started helping the tnurses and doctors to them out. How long after this did baby george ase . Like an hour and 30 minutes. Goodness. Its such a traumatic experience giving birth,nd your wife must of been doing this whi in shock. She was not just inho, there was no medicine. A remarkable story of survival and perseverance in dextraordinary devting circumstances in beirut. Remember, we will bring you the latest of whats happening and u keep you rigp to date outside sourc for now, you are watching bbc ws. I will be back in a couple of minutes. Narrator funding for this presentation of this program is provided by. 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