Lebanon witnessed snowfall at altitudes as low as 500 meters and a significant drop in temperatures in the winter storm’s second day.
BEIRUT – Caretaker Social Affairs Minister Wael Abou Faour said that the situation of the Syrian refugees is “disastrous” amid the winter storm that has been blanketing regions with low altitudes for the second day in a row.
“I am terrified because the situation is disastrous and we are helpless,” Abou Faour said in comments to Akhbar al-Yawm news agency on Thursday.
“The cold will [kill] people and the state cannot help it… All we can do is try to cushion the impact of the tragedy, not [prevent] it,” he added.
The caretaker minister blamed this “incapacity” on the “absence of political decisions to establish official refugee camps” for the Syrians.
Meanwhile, the Social Affairs Ministry stated that its teams continued to cooperate with army units, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and humanitarian organizations in order to distribute emergency aid to Syrian refugees in a number of areas.
“We have delivered aid for the fortification of refugee tents in [Baalbek’s] Brital, Shaat and Housh al-Nabi. The distribution [process] will resume today in the Al-Qaa Projects, Al-Khodr, Iaat, Harbta, Shlifa and Deir al-Ahmar,” An-Nahar newspaper quoted Thursday the ministry as saying.
It added that British Minister of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office Hugh Robertson declared Wednesday after wrapping up his Beirut visit that his country will be providing 24 million pounds ($39.27) worth of aid for Syrian refugees.
Meanwhile, Lebanon witnessed snowfall at altitudes as low as 500 meters and a significant drop in temperatures in the winter storm’s second day.
The National News Agency reported that Mount Lebanon’s Dahr al-Baydar and Beqaa’s Zahlet Tarshish roads were blocked due to the accumulation of snow.
Civil Defense and Public Works Ministry bulldozers are working on opening the two roads, the NNA added.
Black ice formed on Akkar’s Al-Doniyeh roads, which are at an altitude of above 500 meters, due to low temperatures that plunged below zero degrees Celsius after heavy snow fell overnight coating roads with 3 to 5 centimeters (1.1 to 1.9 inches) of snow.
In Tyre, the storm caused three vehicles to overturn, according to the state news agency.
Water swept the General Security’s office in Tyre’s Mina due to the increase in wind speed and the rise of the level of waves.
Water also reached the southern city’s Old Souk, which required the intervention of Tyre’s municipality and Civil Defense to drain the water.
In Akkar, snowfall blocked the majority of the roads and reached a height of 1.5 meters in some towns.
Crops and plastic tents suffered significant damages after sleet destroyed the vegetation.
The damages caused by the snow storm in Akkar included major power cuts and outage of cellphone telecommunications and private internet networks overnight.
Also, snow covered positions where the UNIFIL’s Indian troops are located in the Shebaa heights, Sadana Mountain and Kfarshouba Heights. It also isolated Israeli military spots north and east of the occupied Shebaa Farms.
Snow reached 55 centimeters in the Western heights of the Al-Sheikh Mountain, 15 centimeters in Shebaa and 10 centimeters in Kfarshouba.
The blizzard also caused three trees to fall down in Tripoli, one of which destroyed a Mercedes that was parked in the Mina region, and another that produced damage in the yard of Tripoli’s Sharia Court.
The Internal Security Forces’ Public Relations Division issued a statement enumerating the roads that were blocked by snowfall, which include Kfardebian-Ayoun al-Simen road, Al-Laqlouq-Ehmej street, Inata-Arz-Hadath Baalbek highways among several others.
A large number of public and private schools kept their doors closed for the second day in a row upon the Education Ministry’s decision.
Meanwhile, Head of the Department of Meteorology at the Beirut International Airport Mark Wheibi noted that temperatures hit their lowest overnight.
He also predicted snowfall at altitudes as low as 500 meters, and water precipitation to significantly rise Thursday overnight accompanied by heavy snow.
Wheibi also said that the tempest will begin to subside Saturday night.
A winter storm began Wednesday in Lebanon with snow blanketing the Beqaa and mountain areas as frigid temperatures settled over the country.
The storm, also known as “Alexa”, killed two people and injured 14 others.
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/lebanonnews/525210-lebanon-helpless-towards-syrian-refugees-amid-storm
