For most Lebanese, life has become a seemingly endless succession of crises
THE CLOCK had just struck 6pm when the world shook. From Sassine Square, one mile from the blast, it seemed like a car bomb or a gas explosion—a disaster, but a localised one. Only on the drive down towards the Mediterranean did the scale of the devastation become clear. Streets were blanketed with broken glass that rained down from battered buildings. At a busy inter-section three women sat in the median holding scraps of fabric to bloodied heads.
It is still unclear what ignited the stockpile. Local media suggest that workers were welding nearby. Whatever the cause, it sent forth a towering fireball and a shock wave that slammed across half of Beirut. A sickly plume of reddish smoke lingered over the city long into the night. Scientists interviewed on television warned residents to shut their windows and wear masks because of toxic fumes laced with nitric acid.
Repairing the damage would be a tall order in good times. These are not good times in Lebanon. The economy has all but collapsed since October. Its currency, the pound, had been pegged for decades at 1,500 to the dollar. But the country has run short of dollars to maintain the peg and finance its yawning trade deficit. It can no longer sustain a years-long Ponzi scheme that saw the central bank borrow dollars from commercial banks in exchange for above-market interest payments.
The government, installed in January, was meant to be a technocratic one that would tackle the economic crisis. It has accomplished almost nothing. After the default it asked the IMF for a financial agreement worth up to $10bn. Several months and 20 meetings later there is no progress towards a deal—because Lebanon is still negotiating with itself.
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