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Officials still assessing damage of weekend storm

15 December 2010

BEIRUT: Two days after the heavy storm that hit Lebanon eased, damages are still surfacing.

In the southern coastal city of Sidon, locals gathered Tuesday near the city’s port to observe works to lift five cars that fell into the sea during the storm.

Nahed Mordaa, the owner of one of the cars, complained to The Daily Star about the material loss she incurred.

“The lifted cars can no longer be used, but only sold as parts,” she said.

The cars were parked on the port’s dock, awaiting paperwork processing before entering Lebanon.

Also in the south, the six-member family of Khodr Hassan survived the collapse of their home’s ceiling in the village of Qlaileh, near Tyre.

Residents of the house were sleeping Monday night when the roof fell due to intense wind and heavy rainfall.

Several villages and towns are still suffering from electricity blackouts despite efforts made by maintenance teams to repair damage.

The state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that a number of villages in the Bekaa Valley were still suffering from electricity shortages.

Electricite du Liban issued a statement in which it said that its maintenance teams have been working since the start of the storm to repair “intense” defects that occurred in electricity networks. The statement said that repairing some “huge” damages would take some time. It said maintenance teams suffered a 65 percent shortage in staff.

Electricite du Liban said that efforts are ongoing to repair the damage to power and conveyer plants, saying services were gradually returning to normal starting from Tuesday morning.

The storm that hit Lebanon over the weekend saw a snowfall at an altitude of 700 meters, and wind reaching a maximum speed of 100 kilometers per hour.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese Army Command issued a statement in which it said that army units were continuing works to open roads blocked by snow in cooperation with relevant agencies.

The army urged citizens to contact the closest military headquarters or military operation room when encountering problems resulting from the bad weather.

It said that the army had opened roads, removed cars trapped in snow and rescued citizens stuck in their homes and cars in areas throughout Lebanon.

In other news, Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud forwarded letters to the Internal Security Forces, Civil Defense and firefighting units in which he praised their efforts to confront the repercussions of the storm and to preserve the lives and properties of people, despite their modest capabilities. Baroud asked the agencies to maintain their complete preparedness to deal with any emergency incident.

The storm has inflicted extensive damage on agricultural products. The NNA said that 40 percent of vineyards in the Bekaa were ruined.

However, the storm increased the levels of water in a number of rivers and their tributaries in Lebanon, after the country experienced a nearly precipitation-free November and an unseasonable warm and dry weather.

An official from the Meteorological Department of the Civil Aviation authority told The Daily Star that since September, rainfall in Beirut reached 179 mm, compared to an average of 242 mm.

© Copyright The Daily Star 2010.