EEnvironment & Public Space

Massive blaze is Saida’s latest disaster

byHabib Battah
Apr 28, 2013

This doomsday-like cloud loomed ahead as we drove through Saida (Sidon) today.

According to this super short report in the Daily Star, it was a plastics factory that caught fire, but there were few other details, except that the plant was reportedly owned by Yehya Hariri. It wasn’t clear if there was any relation to the powerful Hariri family, also from Saida.

This ownership detail was curiously not included in the even smaller articles on the blaze that appeared in popular news sites Naharnet and Now Lebanon, which only devoted three sentences to the story.

And yet the fire over Lebanon’s third largest city could be seen for miles:

Seems a news event like this might warrant more attention, considering the amount of toxins that have been released into the sky.

It’s also unclear if the fire affected the city’s massive garbage dump, which has frequently ignited in the past.

With so many environmental disasters befalling Saida, it’s hard to believe so many big politicians live here.

I wonder if this new guy running for office will do anything about it:

The cloud lingered for miles, putting a damper on this beautiful day…

….and this great interfaith billboard with sheikhs and priests high fiving one another:

Habib Battah

Habib Battah is an investigative journalist and founder of the news site beirutreport.com. Battah has covered Lebanon and the Middle East for over 15 years and teaches journalism and media studies at the American University of Beirut. He is a contributor to Monocle, The Guardian, BBC World, Al Jazeera and others, a former fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and two-time recipient of the Samir Kassir Press Freedom Award. Battah's investigative work was recently recognized for outstanding local reporting by the Columbia University Oakes Award for Environmental Reporting. Battah earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in Near East Studies and Journalism from New York University.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Who Am I?

Habib Battah is an investigative journalist and founder of the news site beirutreport.com. Battah has covered Lebanon and the Middle East for over 15 years and teaches journalism and media studies at the American University of Beirut. He is a contributor to Monocle, The Guardian, BBC World, Al Jazeera and others, a former fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and two-time recipient of the Samir Kassir Press Freedom Award. Battah's investigative work was recently recognized for outstanding local reporting by the Columbia University Oakes Award for Environmental Reporting. Battah earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in Near East Studies and Journalism from New York University.