Up to this moment, the Lebanese people are still trying to make sense of the massive blast which turned Beirut into a piece of hell within minutes on Tuesday noon.
In a neighborhood of the Lebanese capital, where young people used to stay up late at its bars, young men and women volunteered to clean a street that turned into a something like a battle field, without having to wait for action from the state which is widely accused of corruption.
AFP quoted Melissa Fadlallah, 42, asking: “Where is the state?”. She added: “If we really had a state, it would have sent someone who cleans and works with us to clean the street. We are the ones who help, we are the ones who donate blood, what do they do?”
Melissa is one of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who took to the streets in October last year for long months, demanding the complete overthrow of the ruling elite, accusing it of corruption and failure to find solutions to the successive crises that led to an unprecedented economic collapse.
The Tuesday's blast in Bierut, has so far killed more than 155 people and injured about five thousand.
In the Mar Mikhael neighborhood, the closest point to the Beirut port, which has long been a meeting place for young people, nothing remains the same after the massive explosion.
Hundreds of years old heritage buildings have been cracked, pubs and theaters whose facades have been blown apart, and their belongings scattered in the middle of the street.
The day after the bombing, young men and women spontaneously arrived to inspect the damage and to help its residents to clean it.
Melissa put on gloves and a mask on her face, and she carried a large glass plate that fell in front of one of the buildings.
"To me, this country is just a dumpster," she said, referring to the ruling class.
Civil defense personnel inspected the damaged buildings and search for injured people in Beirut, while the young volunteers are distributed in small groups, removing glass pieces and placing them in huge plastic bags, and some of them offer their homes to the residents of the damaged houses.
Since Wednesday morning, messages have been circulating on social networking sites from residents of several cities and towns, expressing their willingness to accommodate families affected by the explosion. Authorities in Beirut have earlier announced that about 300 thousand people were displaced by the blast.
In Beirut itself, residents opened the doors of their homes to receive their relatives, friends, or even strangers, whose homes were damaged and rendered uninhabitable.
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