There are many horrific scenes that documented the moment the port of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, exploded a year ago, including a scene known in the media as “The Bride of Beirut,” when joy turned into terror.

On August 4, 2020, Dr. Esraa Al-Siblani was preparing for her wedding to businessman Ahmed Sobeih, and one of the photographers was taking a video clip of her in her white dress in one of the beautiful and quiet squares in central Beirut.

Esraa’s happiness on her day of joy quickly dissipated in a blink of an eye, when the city shook, everything flew in the place, and debris and dust dominated the scene documented by the camera of the photographer Mahmoud Al-Naqeeb.

This scene has become one of the most popular scenes, and was seen all over the world, as it reflects the horror moments experienced by Beirut.

This is one of the accounts of the disaster that struck most of the residents of Beirut and its surroundings. As a result of an explosion that killed more than 200 people and injured about 7,000 others, as well as massive material damage to residential buildings and commercial establishments.

A year later, Anadolu Agency met the “Bride of Beirut” in the same square, and it also happened that there was a bride preparing for the wedding, who came to the place to take pictures of her with her husband before the wedding.

“Life continues.” This is how the scene of the new couple in the square suggests, but it is not like that for Israa. This scene takes her back a year… to difficult moments that she remembers every day.

This square attracts new couples, and is about 1.5 km away from the site of the explosion, which occurred in Ward 12 in Beirut Port, shook all parts of the city, destroyed entire neighborhoods, and affected an estimated distance of 8 km.

Esraa told Anatolia, that the memory of this day always accompanies her, and she cannot forget it, as this is a collective memory that will remain stuck in the minds of all citizens.

She adds that the title “Bride of Beirut” sometimes bothers her; Because it reminds her of the “black day”, which overshadowed Lebanon, and indicates that in front of the horror of the catastrophe, the wedding ceremony was canceled.

Fate decreed that neither Isra nor her husband were to be inflicted with any bodily harm on that day, but she laments the victims and the wounded who fell.

According to the Beirut Syndicate of Engineers report on damage assessment, the force of the explosion was equivalent to the energy of an earthquake measuring 4 on the Richter scale.

** A tragic sign of sadness

“The whole Lebanese people will not forget that day,” said businessman Ahmed Sobeih, Esraa’s husband, who was beside her at the moment of the explosion.

He continues: “Our wedding was supposed to be one of the happiest days in our lives, but it turned into a tragic mark of sadness for us and for all of Lebanon.”

Sobeih feels that life in Lebanon has become difficult after the explosion, but he expresses his faith in this country and the people who have been suffering and struggling for some time to stand firm, hoping for a better tomorrow.

The explosion increased the repercussions of an economic crisis, the worst in Lebanon’s modern history, which led to financial and livelihood collapse, loss of purchasing power for most of the population, scarcity of medicines and fuel, and high prices of food commodities.

The couple revealed that they are preparing to complete the official papers required to move to the United States of America or Canada to live there in the hope of a better future.

The couple wished that Beirut would rise again, and return as it was before, the “bride” of Lebanon and the Arab world.

To this day, life in Beirut has not returned to normal, especially since large areas of it are still damaged, especially the port and the residential neighborhoods close to it, and many commercial establishments are still closed.

Even today, the families of the victims and the wounded are calling for justice and accountability for those involved, at a time when human rights organizations inside and outside the country believe that Lebanese officials are placing obstacles before the judiciary, which delays the investigation, in light of the refusal of official bodies to subject current and former officials to the investigation.

According to preliminary investigations, the explosion occurred in block 12 of the port, which the authorities say contained about 2,750 tons of the highly explosive “ammonium nitrate”, which had been confiscated from a ship and stored since 2014.

Anatolia