You may have heard of what happened in Lebanon today and if not, basically, there was a big explosion in Beirut that affected many cities, destroyed shops, homes, cars, caused many injuries and deaths. The cause is uncertain.
As a fellow lebanese myself (that also lives there), today was absolutely terrifying, probably the scariest moments of my life. We heard a deafening sound as the floors were shaking. Some of us thought it was an attack, others thought it was an earthquake. As soon as it ended many expected a second one, which luckily never happened.
Here’s a video of what happened that was sent to me, there are also many others that you can find online.
Windows were broken, doors wrecked, cars flipped over, buildings collapsed, people hit by flying or falling objects, and unfortunately, many didn’t make it out alive.
We were one of the lucky ones, our families and friends were all safe and our homes were fine.
Some people couldn’t even get out of the crumbling builings, so we saw corpses being pulled out, although some people survived the crash. But wherever we looked, there was blood, poeple were half covered in it, their shirts, pants, hair, everything. And that sight was traumatizing.
We watched the news with elders severely injured, children with blood-spattered shirts and people in pain that couldn’t get in the hospitals because they were full.
Some people are missing. Just try to imagine the pain and fear their families and friends are feeling.
Articles about what happened, there are a lot more
Officials expect death toll to rise after huge blast rips through Lebanon's capital.
The explosion took place at the port shortly before 19:00 local time (18:00 CET) with a large cloud of smoke billowing over the city. Eyewit
Not only are we in the middle of a pandemic, but Lebanon is also going through a very serious economical crisis. To give you an example, before, $1 equaled 1 500 lebanese pounds. Nowadays, $1 equals more than 7 000 lebanese pounds. Not to mention that we obviously don’t have any dollars at disposition, so yeah we’re fucked.
People are hungry, homeless, unemployed. And even if they are getting paid, it’ll be useless since the prices of everything went up because they were affected by the economical fiasco.
Important additional information
Today, I heard my 7 year old cousins scream in fear that they were going to die. I saw my aunt shaking, worried that her children won’t survive. I saw my dad freak out while trying to reassure us when we both knew that we were uncertain about the next minutes of our lives. I heard the panic in the trembling voices of my family and friends as they couldn’t believe what had just happened. I thought my loved ones and I were going to die in the next seconds.
I’m never forgetting those moments and feelings.
I don’t think signing petitions will help, i don’t even know if the following links will help either, I just know Lebanon and it’s people are desperate for anything because the future of this country is extremely uncertain.
https://helplebanonnow.carrd.co/
How can you help?
https://lebanoncrisis.carrd.co/
Lebanon Needs You More Than Ever. Know more about the crisis in Lebanon, sign petitions, donate or explore volunteering opportunities.
Help families, domestic workers, and refugees in Lebanon with food and other basic needs during this economic and public health crisis
I think donating to the red cross would be the most helpful, so if you are considering it, it’d be great.
There are so many great threads on twitter about what you can do to help, just search help lebanon or something to find them. Also if you can, please donate, and as I said, the lebanese pound is pretty much worthless currently so USD is way more useful to us.
please consider donating to indigenous communities in Marechal Thaumaturgo ! the fund is organized by the Ashaninka people and donations will go towards support kits (food, equipment, and essential products) to help them through the pandemic
a few days ago in eugene, oregon, a BLM group organized a children’s march to allow kids a space to protest in a family-friendly manner. one of the men leading the protest, isiah wagoner, was intentionally ran over by a subaru driven by a white man. he’s been hospitalized. the man that ran him over has not been charged. would you mind signing a petition to get justice for isiah? he’s been spearheading a lot of the protests and marches in eugene and he’s very important to the community. he only needs a few more signatures! thanks!
here is a carrd for the crisis happening right now in Yemen
here is a carrd for Hong Kong
here is a carrd for Palestine.
here is a carrd for trans rights
here is a carrd for the terror bill in Philippines.
here is a carrd with various donation links (for Syria, BLM etc)
here is a carrd for LGBT+ rights
this post is constantly being updated - please send an ask if you find more!
NOTE: There are many more Carrds under the cut. This post would become too long if I added more and for the sake of easier access, I put the rest under cut!!
“Hi everyone,
For those that know me, I normally am not one to post much on social media about family matters or my life in general. However, on 5/31/20 - 6/1/20, my family’s business of 20+ years was broken into twice. Sunday morning (5/31), looters broke into our store and stole a substantial amount of items. After that incident, with the help of our building management, we were able to set up wooden boards across the glass walls to hopefully prevent any further damage.
Unfortunately, the following night, looters returned and managed to break through the boards and steal even more items, this time even setting fire in the store and setting off the sprinklers. With the smoke/fire and the sprinklers, we will have to get rid of everything in the store and start fresh. My family and I had never imagined such things to happen to us, and so honestly we had never set a high insurance rate to cover everything. As of now, we are in a significant net loss and this fundraiser is to assist damages done in the store as well as items to be purchased to restore the store. I would never ask for help from my peers if I knew we could recuperate the costs on our own. I contemplated on reaching out for help and creating this page for a long week, but after seeing the considerable damage done to our store, I decided to create the page.”
Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old ER technician and former EMT, was lying in her own bed when police broke in and shot her eight times without so much as announcing their presence. Say her name. Do the work. Text. Call. Sign. Donate.
the FBI is reopening Breonna Taylor’s murder investigation due TO SOCIAL MEDIA PRESSURE so please don’t think signing petitions doesn’t work!!!! and now we need to keep fighting!
as the dash moves back to normal, please don’t let this be the end of your activism. this wasn’t just a trend, these are real lives. continue to further your understanding, get educated, listen to black people, and be an active ally.
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