The destruction in Beirut has reminded the world of Lebanon’s devastating plight

Editorial: It will take a lot more than money or mere international goodwill to rebuild the country

Soldiers search for survivors after the massive explosion in the city this week (AP)

Given the sheer scale of the devastation in Beirut, complete with a huge mushroom cloud, it was unsurprising that some of the immediate reactions on social media were to assume it was an act of terror or an attack by a foreign power.

The rush to such judgements was predictable, even though they were wrong. Sad to say, it would not have been a surprise, given Lebanon’s ordeals over the past four decades or so, if it had been a deliberate act of violence.

The explosion involved 3,000 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that the IRA used for its “fertiliser bomb” that destroyed the Baltic Exchange and so devastated parts of the City of London back in the 1990s, for example. Other estimates put the force at about one quarter that of the “Little Boy” atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima 75 years ago this week.