Everyone heard about the last huge
explosion of Beirut Port that occurred in the 4th of August 2020, where
a large amount of ammonium Nitrate stored at the port of the Lebanese capital exploded
and caused at least 203 deaths and over 6500 injuries.
The explosion was preceded by a fire in the
same warehouse where people ran and uploaded videos that showed accidently the
seconds of the blast thinking that was only a fire then they shocked by the
horrible sound and scene.
That disaster was also heard in many nearby
countries and it was considered one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions
in history. Therefore, the size of economic losses was around $7.5 billion
according to the Association of Insurance Companies in Lebanon (ACAL).
The damage affected over half of Beirut,
approximately ninety percent of the hotels in the city and three hospitals were
completely destroyed. Due to the large echo of the blast houses, buildings and
many other destructions filled the place with shrapnel, smoke, glasses, dust
and rubble.
Moreover, scenes of grieve, pain and
wailing were mostly watched in the faces of people especially women whom lost
their children, husband and brother. It is mainly related to female status
because whoever was the died person or the victim he is directly related to
women.
In the aftermath, protests blew up their
deep pain, anger and sadness across Lebanon against the government for their
failure to prevent the disaster.
Feelings Spread Out
For us, we as women are more sensitive and
we feel deeply everything. It was obvious that tears filled everywhere crying
their losses, aches and death.
Amazingly, the most relevant event was when
people thought to rise up again, refused to give up to the dark and started to
plan how they would clean physically and emotionally the effect of the
destruction.
From the first week of the explosion,
civilians: children, adolescents, adults and elderly from different gender and
side of the country gathered in hundreds to volunteer to clean up the debris
inside homes, businesses area and streets.
Buses’ drivers decided to transport people
with their cleaners to the damaged areas, most of them were women who had faith
in a sun that will rise again throughout the black smoke.
In addition, a gentle initiative from young
women step up to cook and offer food, for example, a 17-year-old girl was a
volunteer made with others 400 hot meals everyday which are handed out to those
areas affected by the blasts. Others helped in community cleanup efforts,
packaging and distributing food parcels.
Role of Woman
You could watch clearly the large number of
women on T. Vs, social media and channels that filled the place and the
streets, many searched for their human lost others shouted for their died
relatives.
The most seen images were the ones of the
running nurses and doctors to save lives, with the help of the paramedics and
fire fighters. In a near hospital there was a young nurse who held the three
babies in the destroyed hospital, and in the other side, the image of a
volunteer in the civil defense who offered her soul to protect people from
fire.
More and more that mother who waited to
call her son’s name from the missing under the ruins and that who was observing
the fire from the balcony and by a glance became an ash.
For sure, men in the blast gave a lot of
sacrifices but there was at least one woman who lost a baby, a male member like
her friend, brother, husband or father which means the lost was more and more
painful because in general women are more emotional than men.
Statue of Rising Up
An amazing famous quote said:” What defines
us is how well rise after falling” where the power is essentially not in the
fall, the power, the strength, the glory and success is in the rising. That
what women in Beirut and its outskirts did.
It was known that over 25,000 homes have
been damaged so badly. Thus, windows, doors, aluminum, glass, iron and many
other materials filled the place. Cleaning up happened rapidly and it was
amazing but the brilliant idea is to build that wonderful Statue of the fighter
woman.
They collected the destruction substances
of port area, damage and power all together to rise up again. In fact, that
statue wasn’t only of matters but it was raised by faith, hope and strength. A
summation of feelings and emotions connected together through a forceful giant
structure.
All together one hand shared the
construction, starting from gathering the losses then the build up and finally
the stand up of the statue. What the artist “Hayat Nazer” did was an evident
example of loving life and how the will inside the Lebanese hearts ensure to
inspire others.
For sure, it is hard and extremely painful
to experience such a crisis but sitting and watching will never change the view
unless that ache pushes you to shine and makes you create something out of your
inner soul that really touches all hearts and takes out minds out of astonish.
Hopefully, everyone who saw the rising
woman statue got an optimistic state of mind that would be based on an
expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in
one’s life or the world at large.
Kindly note is the presence of a big clock
on the side of the statue pointed to (6:08) the time of the explosion, for the
Lebanese that time indicated the grieve, the pain but also the reunion of all
the members to complete their lives.
Let you considered this enormous eruption
as a lesson to all humans. To teach you how deep you can cry on lost and how
deep you can rise up again. It was a magnificent sweet action to make such a
statue to always remember the scene and to be inspired to change any bad idea
about despair.
Written by – Rayan Issa
Edited by – Adrija Saha
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