All language subtitles for Beirut Port Explosion_ Minute by Minute _ Full Film_2

Breaking news out of Lebanon's capital,

Beirut. A large explosion has rocked the

city.

>> On the ground, dozens lay dead.

Lebanon's health minister says almost

3,000 people have been injured, the port

area destroyed.

In the heart of Lebanon,

a nation struggling with economic

collapse, political corruption, and

public unrest.

An ordinary summer afternoon would soon

spiral into disaster.

>> Oh my god.

On August 4th, 2020, at Beirut's

bustling port,

a fire reached a warehouse storing a

highly explosive substance, a ticking

time bomb that had been sitting silently

for years.

Within minutes, a single spark will

trigger a chain reaction, shaking the

city to its core and leaving lives and

the nation itself forever altered.

The explosion that followed would go

down in history as one of the largest

non-nuclear blasts ever recorded.

The aftermath was a scene of chaos,

devastation, and heartbreak as the city

and its people were thrown into crisis.

>> They destroyed our Beirut. This is ours.

>> They strong bullets. My bullets against

us.

>> But what caused this catastrophe and who

allowed it to happen?

Find out as we retrace those moments

minute by minute.

August 20th, 2020.

5:15 p.m.

Beirut.

The late afternoon sun casts a golden

glow across the city.

Traffic hums steadily through the

streets.

People walk past cafes and corner shops.

On the sidewalks, friends linger over

coffee while others go about their

evening.

Beirut sits on the eastern edge of the

Mediterranean Sea.

A port city long considered the cultural

and commercial heart of Lebanon.

Once called the Paris of the Middle

East, it carries a history both vibrant

and turbulent.

Civil war, political assassinations, and

decades of regional conflict have left

deep scars.

In 2020, the country is in the grip of

its worst economic crisis in decades.

Banks are failing. Unemployment is

rising. and protests against corruption

have swept the streets for months.

Yet on this summer evening, the city

moves with the ordinary pulse of daily

life.

To the casual eye, it is nothing more

than a typical day.

17:30 p.m.

Port of Beirut.

Along the city's eastern waterfront lies

its main port.

A vast stretch of concrete yards,

cranes, and warehouses pressed against

the Mediterranean Sea.

It is the lifeline of Lebanon's economy.

It handles more than 2/3 of the nation's

imports, channeling goods in and out of

the country.

[Music]

This afternoon, the port runs as usual.

Engines rumble and workers move steadily

across the quayside.

Nothing stands out, just the ordinary

flow of commerce that keeps Lebanon

alive.

[Music]

5:45 p.m. Warehouse 12.

A thin ribbon of smoke rises, curling

into the late afternoon sky.

It's coming from warehouse 12, situated

near the northern edge of the port,

close to the docks where cargo ships

usually unload.

It is faint at first, barely visible

against the sunlit port.

Most workers pay little attention,

continuing with their routines as the

day moves on.

And yet inside the warehouse, thousands

of tons of ammonium nitrate sit stacked

in the heat, a dangerous explosive

substance.

The smallest spark is enough to shift

the air.

What begins as a wisp of smoke is the

first trace of catastrophe.

Within minutes, the rhythm of the port

will shatter

5:54 p.m.

Flames at the warehouse begin to

intensify,

rapidly spreading across the stored

materials.

Rumors start to spread across the site

that the blaze may have been sparked by

welding work done earlier that day.

Thick black smoke rises, visible from

several kilometers away.

Nearby workers and residents start

dialing emergency services as panic

spreads.

Fire crews are dispatched immediately.

5:57 p.m. The first fire crew arrives on

the scene. Platoon 5. A small team of

young men and women from Beirut Civil

Defense pulls up to the warehouse.

Sirens wail as they try to access the

building to assess and contain the

blaze. For them, it feels like a routine

call.

Nearby, workers begin to evacuate,

moving quickly away from the building.

As the fire continues to grow,

tension mounts as onlookers gather,

unaware that behind the doors, the

flames are feeding on a force far beyond

their control.

The firefighters do not know what lies

inside, but the authorities do. The

presence of ammonium nitrate has been no

secret.

Yet the crews are sent in regardless,

unknowingly walking towards their death.

They stand no chance.

6:07 p.m.

The fire inside warehouse 12 rages

higher.

Onlookers crowd closer, phones lifted to

capture the scene.

Unaware of what's coming, the

firefighters press forward, trying to

reach the source of the blaze.

In an instant, the sky erupts. A first

detonation rips through the warehouse,

sending a blast wave across the port.

The ground shutters. Buildings tremble.

Some people freeze where they stand,

paralyzed in shock. Others keep

recording, their cameras capturing the

chaos as debris rains down around them.

6:08 p.m. The smoke billows high above

the port, and the fire seems to ease for

a moment.

People watching begin to think the worst

may have passed. But in seconds, a

second, far more powerful blast rips

through the port.

[Music]

>> What?

>> The explosion registers as a 3.3

magnitude Dremer felt across Beirut.

It is so powerful that it can be heard

far beyond Lebanon

and Syria.

This time the shock wave reaches deep

into the city.

Entire neighborhoods are shaken as

buildings tremble violently. Babe,

>> I'm good. I'm good.

Windows shatter in apartment blocks and

offices, sending glass flying into the

streets and sidewalks.

Doors are ripped from their hinges. Cars

are overturned and debris crashes down

from rooftops.

People are thrown to the ground, some

knocked unconscious while others rush to

help the injured through the chaos.

Panic spreads instantly.

Screams echo through the streets.

Emergency alarms blare and people rush

blindly through debris littered roads,

struggling to comprehend the scale of

the devastation unfolding around them.

In the span of a single minute, Beirut,

the heart of Lebanon, is shattered.

Thousands of lives are thrown into

peril. But one question remains.

How could this be allowed to happen,

November 2013.

The Mediterranean sun glints off the

water as the cargo ship Ross enters the

port of Beirut.

On board is a massive shipment, 2,750

tons of ammonium nitrate destined for

Mosamb beek.

The ship had set sail from Georgia, but

Beirut was never meant to be its

destination.

The plan was simple. Stop briefly,

collect an additional shipment, and

continue through the Suez Canal.

But the new shipment too heavy and the

owner Igor Graushkin cannot afford the

extra fees.

What should have been a short stop

becomes something else entirely.

Soon after docking, Lebanese authorities

seize the vessel over unpaid port fees

and safety violations.

The ammonium nitrate is offloaded and

moved into warehouse 12, right beside

the grain silos.

There it sits quietly and unnoticed.

A ticking time bomb that will remain in

place for years.

6 years later on August 4th, 2020, the

worst fear becomes reality.

Investigators believed it started in a

stash of fireworks stored nearby. A

spark that set off a chain reaction.

Within minutes, the flames reached the

thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate.

Ammonium nitrate is a simple chemical,

a salt made from ammonium and nitric

acid.

It is cheap to produce and widely used

to fertilize crops.

But it has a darker side.

Ammonium nitrate is an oxidizer.

It does not burn on its own. Instead, it

feeds fire.

It releases oxygen, allowing other

materials to ignite with explosive

force.

Under normal conditions, it is stable,

but if stored improperly near heat or

flame, it can become deadly.

On August 4th, when the fire reached the

ammonium nitrate, the outcome was

inevitable and the result was

catastrophic.

In seconds, the compound violently

decomposed into nitrous oxide gas and

water vapor, unleashing energy

equivalent to hundreds of tons of TNT.

The blast tore through the city, sending

a shock wave across Beirut, leveling

buildings, shattering glass, and carving

a crater more than 40 m deep into the

port.

A chilling marker of the devastation,

making it one of the largest non-nuclear

explosions in human history.

>> We have breaking news out of Lebanon's

capital, Beirut. A large explosion has

rocked the city.

>> On the ground, dozens lay dead.

Lebanon's health minister says almost

3,000 people have been injured. The port

area destroyed.

>> In the first hours after the blast,

Beirut is unrecognizable.

Entire districts within the port

perimeter are reduced to rubble.

Buildings collapse. Cars are mangled and

streets are buried beneath glass and

twisted steel.

Firefighters battle the flames that

still rage across the port.

Their efforts desperate against the

wreckage left behind.

The fires spread unpredictably, leaping

from one ruined warehouse to another.

Many of the crews are grieving. Members

of Platoon 5 never returned from the

warehouse.

Even so, their colleagues keep working,

pushing through exhaustion and shock.

But with water lines damaged and

equipment limited, crews struggled to

contain the fires consuming the port.

Among the ruins, both rescue crews and

ordinary citizens begin searching

through the debris.

Rescue teams from all around the world,

including the UK, France, Italy, and

many others arrived to assist in the

search and rescue efforts.

We have sent the first explosion 75

ambulances then 50 ambulance sent by

blood and others and now we are in the

post to work regarding uh evacuation of

the dead bodies and others. Now more

than 5,000 wounded more than 150 54 dead

bodies. It's not easy waiting for

disappeared also. It's something really

very sad for us.

These international teams join local and

national crews forming a coordinated

response to the overwhelming

destruction.

They use cranes, sniffer dogs, thermal

cameras, and other specialized tools to

help trapped individuals while also

manually lifting heavy debris.

Every action requires careful precision

to prevent further collapse and protect

both the rescuers and those they are

trying to save.

The human toll rises rapidly.

Casualty reports come in by the minute,

each one more devastating than the last.

>> He thought his wife and four daughters

would be safe in Beirut.

Only two daughters are alive today, one

in intensive care. The other children

and his wife were killed in Tuesday's

explosion.

[Music]

Stories like his are tragically common

across Across the city, countless

families are shattered, losing parents,

children, brothers, and sisters in an

instant.

Among them are the parents of Alexandra,

the youngest victim of the blast.

When the first explosion struck, it

hurled both mother and daughter across

the room. The impact left Alexandra with

a severe head injury.

Despite every effort to save her, the

little girl died in hospital two days

later.

>> Our daughter was uh was victim of a

crime, if not if you could call it a

murder, of incompetence and uh

negligence.

It's a crime.

She's uh the happiest person I've known.

Uh if there's one thing uh Tracy and I

are uh are glad about is that uh we

really think that she spent probably the

the best 3 and 1/2 years uh anybody

could have had.

Behind every number is a family torn

apart.

In the days that followed, thousands of

people placed missing posters across the

city, clinging to the hope that loved

ones might still be found.

Each name on those papers was a reminder

that the blast was not just a disaster

of scale, but a deeply personal tragedy

felt in every neighborhood.

In the days that follow, hospitals are

flooded with casualties.

Corridors fill with the wounded while

doctors and nurses scramble to treat

injuries in hallways and parking lots.

We got getting around 450 500 patients

through one door into the emergency

department where you your medical

supplies are already u being burnt out

by corona virus, lack of foreign

currency to bring more supplies. Uh it

was a a big hit on an already tired

community, medical field, doctors and

everyone.

Some hospitals are themselves damaged,

their windows blown out and equipment

destroyed,

forcing patients to be evacuated into

the chaos outside.

At St. George Hospital, one of Beirut's

largest medical centers and located only

800 m away from the port. The damage is

severe.

Its neonatal intensive care unit is

shattered. Newborns left stranded in the

rubble.

>> Everything in the unit where I work with

was uh destroyed. The incubators were

destroyed. The desks, the computers, the

telephones, everything in the unit was

destroyed. I was in a specific place

when the blast happened. I found myself

in another completely another place.

It's a room adjacent to where I was. I

found myself alone with three babies. I

did not know what to do. So I got out of

the hospital towards CGF outside. Uh we

are we are trained to do such

evacuations. But this was beyond

expectations.

>> Across the city, smaller clinics and

makeshift centers are forced to step in.

School courtyards and even sidewalks

become triage zones. are volunteering as

a medical first aid as much as we can to

help the people who have injuries from

the day of the explosion till now for

free. Everything we can do as medical

first aid from the injuries to the

medications

for free. It's not easy. It's not easy

at all for everyone. The people who have

been injured, the people who have uh

lost their lives, their family members,

their houses, their work, it's not easy.

It's a catastrophe.

Medical staff improvise treatment with

what little equipment they can find,

often working through their own injuries

to tend to others.

Outside hospitals, crowds gather in the

darkness, clinging to scraps of hope as

lists of the dead and injured begin to

circulate.

For many, the search for missing

relatives ends in heartbreak.

Foreign

[Music]

has.

August 10th, 2020.

The announcement is official. Lebanon's

leaders have stepped down.

Not out of accountability, but out of

survival, forced by the fury of the

people.

But the statement brings little comfort.

For many Lebanese, it feels like too

little, too late.

>> The blast has not only destroyed Beirut,

it has stripped away what little faith

people had in their leaders.

>> A crowd confronted the justice minister

today.

"This is humiliation," he shouts. "All

of you politicians knew what was in that

port.

She'd come to see the damage for herself

and try to convince people that justice

would be done.

>> What answer can you give the people?

>> I'm giving I'm telling them only one

thing regarding the investigation.

I won't

talk.

I will not stay aside. I will talk. I

will not accept that the investigation

doesn't go to the full truth. People are

absolutely furious with the Minister of

Justice. They won't let her walk along

the street. She may say that there's

going to be an investigation, but people

have no trust. They have no belief in

this government. She's quite brave

actually to come out here on this street

and face the people. But they don't care

about that. They just want this

government gone.

The Lebanese regime known as Elsa has

long been synonymous with corruption and

criminal networks entrenched in every

level of government. But the timing of

this crisis could not have been worse.

Lebanon was already deep in economic

freeall.

Earlier in 2020, prices of basic

necessities had spiked while the

Lebanese pound collapsed.

>> What once was a monthly salary of 1

million, worth $700 in 2019,

had fallen to barely $100 by February

2020.

Poverty rates across the country soared.

Families could no longer afford private

alternatives to failing public services.

Fuel shortages spread, leaving even

hospitals in the dark.

The explosion on top of this collapse

only deepened despair and fueled rage.

More than 300,000

people were suddenly homeless. Entire

families were displaced in an instant.

And early estimates put the cost at over

$15 billion.

For many Lebanese, it was the final

straw, leaving people more determined

than ever to demand change.

The days after the resignation, people

erupted with fury.

Beirut becomes a city tearing itself

apart.

These demonstrations are the largest and

most violent in months. A boiling point

reached after years of frustration.

Young and old take to the streets,

united by anger at the authorities.

The explosion, which devastated more

than half the capital, has galvanized a

desperate population already pushed to

breaking point by deepening economic and

political collapse.

>> Our government did not deploy one

soldier or one policeman to help us to

remove the bodies from under the rubble.

did not help us for 5 days, not remove

one old woman from any building, any any

stone. And here they are.

>> In Martyr Square, protesters raise

makeshift gallows as a symbol of their

fury.

For some, they are symbolic, a call to

hang the ruling elite and strip them of

their power. For others, the sentiment

is literal.

We going to kill them. We want to kill

them.

>> We want They destroyed our Beirut. This

is ours.

>> The Lebanese army today. They shot my

voice against us.

Crowds swell as the night goes on. Tear

gas rolls through the streets, choking

the air. Yet, with every canister fired,

more people surge forward, driven by a

burning sense of righteous anger.

Their destination is clear. Parliament,

the building that for many embodies the

corruption at the heart of Lebanon's

ruling system.

They're shouting far, which means

revolution.

>> That Beirut hadn't experienced enough

trauma.

The city is convulsing with anger.

>> People are furious with their government

and with the authorities. Most of the

people here, their apartments, their

homes have been destroyed

>> and they want justice. Make no mistake,

this is a dangerous variant for the

country.

>> Plastic bullets crackle through the air.

Some protesters fall, blood spilling

once again into Beirut's weary streets.

A population already battered by crisis

now faces the full force of state

security.

One thing is clear. No one is willing to

accept a return to the status quo.

[Music]

as the days unfold. New revelations

deepen the people's anger.

The ammonium nitrate in warehouse 12 did

not sit there unnoticed.

Judges, customs officers, and port

officials all raised alarms.

Letters circulated year after year

describing the cargo as a danger, a

serious threat to public safety.

There were attempts to find a solution.

Some proposed reexporting the shipment.

Others suggested selling it to

commercial companies or handing it over

to an army for safe storage.

Each proposal was sent up the chain of

command. Each one stalled.

No decision was ever acted upon. And so

the cargo remained exactly where it was,

sealed inside a warehouse that was never

designed to hold it.

Meanwhile, the bags began to decay.

Moisture seeped through the thin

plastic, weakening the sacks. The

chemical grew more unstable with time,

more volatile with every season of heat

and humidity.

What was once dangerous became deadly.

From the very start, the Lebanese people

demanded justice.

Families of the victims, survivors, and

entire communities called for

accountability, for someone to finally

take responsibility for the explosion

that tore their lives apart.

But those demands quickly collided with

Lebanon's political system.

The country's constitutional provision

for political immunity shields

high-ranking officials from prosecution,

placing them above the law.

Foreign

speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech.

In December 2020, lead investigator Fadi

Sawan charged former Prime Minister

Hassan Dyab and three ex-ministers with

negligence.

[Music]

But within months, under mounting

political pressure, San was removed from

the case. for

maybe

his successor, Judge Tarak Bar pressed

forward.

He asked Parliament to lift immunity for

several MPs who had previously served as

ministers, but his requests were

rejected.

Without approval, he could not even

question senior officials, let alone

bring charges against them. And whoever

has asked the questions, the right

questions, like a judge, an

investigative judge whose name was Tar,

>> the person who dared ask the right

questions was forced to stop the

investigation was threatened to pull

away from the investigation because it

would harm the national security

interests of Lebanon.

>> To the people, the message was clear.

Those in power were protecting

themselves.

In a system where officials can dismiss

judges and block investigations,

justice is impossible.

For many Lebanese, the lack of

accountability feels like a second

betrayal.

Proof that the same corruption that

allowed the ammonium nitrate to sit for

years is still protecting those

responsible for the disaster.

[Music]

[Music]

more than 3 years on, the fight for

justice continues.

Families of the victims, activists, and

ordinary citizens still demand

accountability.

holding on to hope even as political

immunity and corruption make it nearly

impossible.

>> Her death

could lead to the miracle that the

country needs because we definitely need

a miracle. There's nothing else that can

save us. Uh so let's you know let's uh

communicate let let the people hear the

story so that it triggers uh humanity in

people that are still following these

guys. And maybe it it triggers something

even in in these murders. I don't know.

>> Beirut itself has not fully recovered.

Entire neighborhoods remain scarred by

the blast and the weight of the tragedy

still hangs heavy.

Yet amid the destruction, a strong sense

of community has emerged.

Residents and local groups have taken

rebuilding into their own hands, working

together and supporting one another when

institutions have failed them.

At the same time, many Lebanese no

longer see a future in their own

country. They do not feel safe. They do

not feel heard. And they have lost faith

in a system that protects the powerful

while silencing the people.

God gave me a second chance to live. I

don't want to live it here. I wanted to

live it somewhere. Somewhere safe,

somewhere somewhere peace, somewhere

where where I can live life, live my

normal life.

>> For them, leaving Lebanon feels like the

only path forward.

Government corruption remains one of the

country's most pressing challenges.

Political institutions are plagued by

impunity with sectarian elites enriching

themselves at the public's expense.

Anti-corruption laws and oversight

bodies have been introduced, but weak

enforcement and entrenched resistance

from the ruling class have prevented

meaningful change.

>> We don't live in a country. This is not

a this is not a government. We

we we live to survive here. Like we live

a day. I don't know if we're going to

live tomorrow or not. This is how bad it

is here to to live in Lebanon. This is

how bad it is.

>> Beirut's resilience is undeniable. But

resilience alone cannot rebuild a

country.

While some essential services have been

restored through local and international

efforts, the city and the nation remain

far from recovered.

The explosion was not just a moment of

devastation.

It was a symbol of Lebanon's deeper

wounds.

[Music]

Wounds that will not heal until justice,

accountability, and real change take

root.

[Music]

[Music]