In Lebanon, the collapse of a building reveals the decay of a city

On Sunday, this 54-year-old shopkeeper closed his ground-floor store, where he has worked for three decades, as usual, before going home. He narrowly escaped disaster.

"Our neighbors, our loved ones are dead... People have lost their livelihoods," explains this father of four, now without income.

"We could tell that the building wasn't in very good condition. We contacted the town hall, but we received no response," he told AFP.

Only eight people were able to be pulled alive from the debris of the 12-apartment building in the Bab el-Tabbaneh district.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, residents are torn between anger and sadness. Some lean out of their balconies to watch the rescue workers clearing the scene.

"Politicians come, do their thing, and leave. They're all liars. Nobody cares about the poor," laments Adnan Mardash. "If an official had lived in this building, it would have been sorted out in a snap."

A little further on, 60-year-old Naser Fadel watches the scene in tears in front of his shop. He has always lived in the neighborhood.

"Here, we live in extreme poverty. We have lived through wars... there are no words to describe what we have endured," he testifies. "Those who died were wonderful people. Poor and humble."

Even before the start of the economic crisis that hit Lebanon in 2019, more than half of the city's population lived below the poverty line, according to the UN.

114 buildings evacuated

The building that collapsed is located on the street that separates the Sunni quarter of Bab el-Tabbaneh from the Alawite quarter of Jabal Mohsen, scenes of frequent communal clashes between 2007 and 2014.

Bullet holes, shell craters... some buildings still bear the scars. And the 2023 earthquake that struck Turkey and neighboring Syria, and was felt as far away, further aggravated the situation.

On Sunday, the Tripoli municipality declared the city "disaster-stricken" and urged the state to assume its responsibilities.

Following an emergency government meeting on Monday, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam announced the evacuation of 114 buildings threatening to collapse, and the payment of a one-year housing allowance for affected families.

The mayor of Tripoli, Abdel Hamid Karimeh, told AFP that at least 600 other buildings require "immediate intervention to reinforce them," while suggesting that the number could be much higher. He added that the municipality recently evacuated 12 buildings and relocated the residents.

Yousef Ahmed, 80, moved to the Qubbah district, not far from Bab el-Tabbaneh, after losing his home in the collapse of his building at the end of January in Tripoli - another tragedy that left two dead.

"Nobody helped us... There are elected officials, rich people" in the city, but "nobody cares about our situation," he laments.

"Lack of control"

The country is dotted with abandoned buildings, and many inhabited buildings are in a state of advanced disrepair.

Several of them have collapsed in recent years, in Tripoli and elsewhere, and the authorities are struggling to take the necessary measures to guarantee safety.

Many buildings were constructed illegally, particularly during the civil war of 1975-1990. Some owners sometimes added floors without any building permits.

According to Abir Saksouk, co-founder of the research and urban planning agency Public Works Studio, the Lebanese authorities have allowed the buildings to deteriorate.

She points to the "lack of control" of construction sites, the weakness of regulatory texts, and "unfair" housing policies that leave many residents in apartments in a pitiful state.

Mohammed al-Sayed, 56, remains in the apartment where he has lived all his life, despite pieces falling from the second-floor balcony.

He acknowledges that the town hall warned him about the appearance of cracks since four additional levels were added to the initial two floors.

"But I have nowhere else to live," he confides.