Russian rescuers were asked to deal with most damaged spot after Beirut blast

MOSCOW, August 18. /TASS/. Russian rescuers from the Emergencies Ministry’s special task group were dispatched to the hardest-hit spot after the devastating blast in the Lebanese capital Beirut, the chief of the ministry’s operative center, Sergei Vorontsov, told TASS in an interview. "We were commissioned to deal with the most-damaged area - the administrative building near the elevator, the center of the explosion. We were told that eighteen missing people might be under the debris," he said. No drawings of the building’s layout were available, which was another adverse factor hindering the search and rescue operation. Moreover, there were many unauthorized makeshift buildings around the elevator. At a certain point drones had to be used to take bird’s eye view pictures of the area. Amid the heaps of steel debris the risk of being injured was high. "At first, we were focused on searching for survivors, but the very look of the ruins was a clear sign there could be none. The ruins were very different from the ones an earthquake might leave. Those were debris from a mighty blast measuring 900 tonnes of the TNT," Voronstov said. A powerful blast at Beirut’s seaport rocked the city on August 4. The explosion ruined or damaged thousands of buildings, leaving more than 300,000 people homeless and killing 178. About 6,000 are listed missing. Beirut’s Governor Marwan Abbud has told TASS it would take $12 billion to $15 billion to rebuild the city. On August 15, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said the investigators have not yet established the cause of the explosion. Different lines of inquiry are being pursued. Aoun added that Lebanon needed satellite images to determine whether or not the explosion might have been caused by a missile. Read more