Tripoli's Mina district, Feb. 9, 2023. Residents of the district have said they fear for the structural safety of their homes following multiple earthquakes. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)
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A 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck the Turkey-Syria border region last night, sparking panic across Lebanon two weeks after the massive Feb. 6 earthquake in Turkey and Syria that killed more than 46,000 people. Some residents of Beirut left their homes after the quake, fearing remaining indoors. People in Saida, South Lebanon, and Tripoli, North Lebanon, congregated in the streets, L'Orient Today's correspondents in the region reported. A 4.3-magnitude earthquake on Feb. 9 prompted Tripoli’s residents to leave their homes towards the area’s public parks due to fears of their homes collapsing. A seismic expert, however, later offered reassurance that the earthquake was “within the norms of the tremors that take place in Lebanon.” The repeated tremors, however, were linked to damages to homes across Lebanon, which authorities asked to be compiled while experts warned of an “increased risk of building collapse.”
Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab announced that the discussion of future legislative sessions, initially scheduled for yesterday, was postponed indefinitely. While the Parliament Bureau supports legislative sessions, any such discussions are dependent on the approval of several laws including a capital control law, which — in addition to being a prerequisite to unlocking a multibillion-dollar International Monetary Fund aid package — was set by the Association of Banks in Lebanon as a condition to ending their open-ended strike. Depositor groups have consistently protested against the current version of capital control, which they consider to be in the favor of banks. More than a third of MPs, however, announced they would boycott any legislative sessions before the election of a new president. “Go now to Parliament, and let's not leave until a new president is elected,” Forces of Change MPs Melhem Khalaf and Najat Aoun Saliba urged their colleagues on Sunday, speaking from inside Parliament where they have been staging a sit-in since Jan. 19.
Municipal employees blocked access to the central bank’s Tripoli office, demanding receipt of their salaries at the Sayrafa rate. The public employees protested the payment of their salaries at the official LL15,000 lira-to-dollar rate by burning tires and prohibiting entry or exit from the Banque du Liban office, L’Orient Today’s correspondent in the area reported. Meanwhile, employees of state-owned telecoms provider Ogero announced they would hold a warning strike today to demand their unpaid February salaries. Protesters in Tripoli, also demanding salary payment at the Sayrafa rate, warned last Friday that they would escalate their demonstrations if their demands were not met. Last Thursday, depositors’ groups claimed to be behind the burning of several banks’ facades in Beirut’s Badaro neighborhood, warning the incidents “will be repeated.”
Residents of Akkar in northern Lebanon held a funeral for a repatriated victim of the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria. Mohammad al-Mohammad was the second Lebanese citizen found dead under the rubble of the Ozcan Hotel in Antakya, from which a third Lebanese man was rescued alive. “We worked for 36 hours straight before we reached Mohammad's body. It then took us another 18 hours to be able to extract him from the rubble,” Civil Defense official Youssef Mallah stated on Sunday. Mohammad was buried in his hometown, al-Abboudiyeh, in Akkar on Monday. According to the Lebanese Foreign Ministry, the earthquake killed at least 16 Lebanese citizens in Turkey alone. Several sources confirmed to L'Orient Today that at least three Lebanese were killed in Syria. Several rescue workers were deployed from Lebanon to aid relief efforts in Turkey and Syria.
In case you missed it, here’s our must-read article from yesterday: “Lebanon’s new income tax system is deeply unfair to lira earners”
Compiled by Abbas Mahfouz