Downtown Beirut was devastated by an explosion that destroyed the port, caused extensive damage to the Lebanese capital and left many others dead.
The explosion was reported to have been powered by a magnitude 3.5 earthquake in the early hours of August 4 and reportedly fed through 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse in the port.
While Lebanon’s post-civil war economy, infrastructure and fundamental facilities are already on their knees due to an unprecedented economic crisis, public protests opposed the government’s alleged corruption and recently the COVID-19 pandemic, another component of Lebanon’s very important national infrastructure is now in ruins.
The port of Beirut handles 60% of Lebanon’s imports as the garage of its food and medicine reserves.
READ ALSO how those affected by Beirut’s fatal explosion can now
The history of a port in Beirut dates back to the 15th century BC. In the 20th century, Beirut was a key seaport serving the oil industry and passenger boarding movements and the like in the Levant and Gulf.
The port has played a key role in Beirut’s history and is located in the city centre, surrounded by some of its most vital neighborhoods.
From 1975 to 1990, Lebanon suffered a protracted and cruel civil war. Beirut has the site where sectarian tensions and regional geopolitics have a component of urban space.
This has led to deep divisions and adjustments in the city’s geography. In September 1975, a few months after the start of the civil war, the center of Beirut was the center of the defense forces’ struggle.
During the war, the city was divided through a “green line” dividing Beirut into an east and west sector. Demographic redistributions have occurred: other people have moved from one aspect of the city to another following sectarian and political lines, with Christians basically settled in the east and Muslims basically west of the line.
A photo of a smoke drone from the scene of an explosion in the port of Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, August 5, 2020
The green line has gradually progressed from the southern suburbs to the west gate of the port. In 1981, the New York Times reported that the port is one of the only stalls in the city where you can cross the Green Line.
In the post-war period, the port of Beirut became a regional seaport. Recently, it submitted a tender for a foreign tender for the control of a container terminal, to the east of where the explosion occurred, and experienced a significant increase in the capacity of its vessels.
Above all, Beirut’s port adjoins the city’s ultimate genuine ownership: Beirut’s central district.
In the early 1980s, this domain was designated for redevelopment and, at the end of the civil war, was the target of one of the largest investment operations in Lebanon’s history.
Redevelopment was considered debatable due to considerations about the lack of sustainability, inequality with the rest of the city, the best prices of genuine goods, the lack of public spaces and the services that are loved.
In 2015 and 2019, dominance has been at the heart of public protests against the government. Until the coronavirus pandemic was interrupted, protesters recaptured several buildings and squares in the city centre. They campaigned against government corruption and, among other things, for the right of access to public facilities and resources.
In addition, they claimed the government’s duty to the collapse of infrastructure and services, the loss of the public and the environmental deterioration.
The port of Beirut is also close to the dense residential spaces of Gemmayzeh, Geitawi and the exclusive urban wallet of Sursock and Tabaris, separated by a highway.
To the east of the port, and adjacent, are the districts of Mar Mikhail and Karantina, the Ottoman quarantine station that marked the point of arrival and agreement of successive waves of refugees, which were added from Armenia in the 1920s and Palestine from the 1940s onwards.
Workers remove debris from broken buildings near the site of an explosion on Tuesday that hit the port of Beirut, Lebanon, on Thursday, August 6, 2020
This neighborhood organization is home to many public and personal people in Lebanon, adding the electric power provider (EDL), a bus station and 3 hospitals. Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhael, in particular, have undergone a gentrification procedure over the past decade, prompting protests by citizens opposing the demolitions of heritage buildings, acoustic pollutants and rising space prices.
The working-class neighborhoods around the port and the rebuilt city center show both sides of the postwar beirut reconstruction.
A downward regeneration with a master plan took a position in Beirut’s central district, while slow-burning gentrification characterizes the other neighborhoods.
Operations have been reported to be relocated from the devastated port of Beirut to the container-capable Lebanese seaport in Tripoli, about 80 km along the coast.
But we underestimate how much has been lost in terms of investment in the port of Beirut and the surrounding city.
Sara Fregonese is a professor of political geography at the University of Birmingham. It works, consults, maintains shares, or earns investments from any company or organization that benefits from this article, and has disclosed any applicable partnerships beyond your college appointment.