Shortly after 6 pm on 4 August 2020, a huge explosion ripped apart Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon.

The explosion severely damaged over 800 buildings in the Mar Mikhael area, the city’s creative heart, killing more than 200 people, injuring thousands, and leaving an estimated 300,000 people homeless.

While the consequences of this catastrophic event are still incalculable, the enormous impact of the explosion continues to reverberate in a city already overwhelmed by pandemic outbreak and by political and economic crises. 

As reported in the New York Times, the Beirut blast “exposed the results of what many Lebanese see as decades of poor governance and corruption”.