The cultural cost of Beirut port explosion

The damage of the Beirut port explosion continues to appear, indicating the extent of the catastrophic devastation that afflicted the city and the whole country. The political and economic costs are very large, but what about the cultural and heritage damages?

Beirut contains many museums, ancient and historical buildings and art galleries in addition to the churches and historical mosques that are considered one of the most important features of the city and which show the authenticity of Beirut despite its renewed face.

The explosion was very large and was classified by the Jordanian Seismological Center as a force equivalent to an earthquake measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale, which left many damages to the historic buildings in the city, and indeed began to receive some information about the damage that struck the St. George’s Cathedral to the Orthodox Christians, which dates back to 1764 which located less than a kilometer from the center of the explosion, where the cathedral presented some pictures of the damage that struck the building whose contents and doors flew out.

In fact, there are many historical buildings adjacent to this cathedral, the distance between them and the explosion point ranges from one to one and a half kilometers, and for this reason we expect to receive more damage reports, some of these buildings are the Church of St. Louis, which dates back to the year 1868. The Great Omari Mosque, which dates back to its construction for the twelfth century. Prince Al-Assaf Mosque and the Imam Al-Awzai Zawia.

there are many historical buildings adjacent to this cathedral, the distance between them and the explosion point ranges from one to one and a half kilometers

There are many museums and cultural halls near the site of the explosion, the most important one is Beirut National Museum, which contains thousands of artifacts from different eras, and the Sursock Palace Museum, which is characterized by its colorful marble and glass facades, as well as the Beirut Metal Museum and many art galleries, like the Plan B hall.

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We hope that the damage will be external and it will not affect the foundations of historical buildings in Beirut and we hope that the archaeological authorities will repair these damages to return as they were.