HOME / NEWS / HUMAN INTEREST

Beirut explosion: Tragic photo shows 3 firefighters trying to enter doomed port warehouse moments before blast

The three were identified as Jo Noon, Methal Hawwa, and Najib Hati; they were part of a 10-person rapid response team dispatched to the port to fight the blazes

A viral photo making the rounds on social media captured the final moments of a group of firefighters who were sent to tackle a blaze at the Port of Beirut moments before 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate detonated with the force equivalent to 2.2 kilotons of TNT.

The image, which has been retweeted and shared hundreds of thousands of times on Twitter by numerous Arabic accounts, shows three firefighters trying to break open the lock off a door beneath a sign that reads 'Entrance 12.' Above the sign, a warning about "hazardous chemicals inside" could be seen.

The three firefighters were identified as Jo Noon, Methal Hawwa, and Najib Hati, according to the Daily Mail, which also reported that they were a part of a 10-person rapid response team who were dispatched to the port to fight the blazes. Hati seemingly did not even take the time to wear his uniform. Nine of those firefighters, including the aforementioned three, are still missing, while the tenth has been identified as 25-year-old Sahar Faris. Faris has been dubbed "the bride of Beirut" on social media after it was revealed that she was engaged to be married in June next year. The person who took the photograph has been confirmed dead as well, with the now-viral photo reportedly found on his cell phone.

The group had been dispatched from the fire station in La Quarantaine, northeastern Beirut, in an emergency response vehicle and were first on the scene, the city's fire chiefs said. While Noon, Hawwa, and Hati went ahead, the six other firefighters followed in a fire engine. "As the fire service, we have the authority to open any door without the approval of any ministry or military," an unnamed fire service official said. "When the smoke first started gathering, we sent a unit of 10 people. Six were in the fire engine and four in the emergency response car."

"The three men in the famous photograph were first on the scene trying to unlock the door to Warehouse 12," the official continued. "Following them were the colleagues in the other vehicles. The blast hit all of them. Nine are still missing and one, Sahar Faris, has been found and declared dead. Her family mourned here yesterday. Her fiancé is devastated."

Several videos of the explosion were uploaded on social media and showed a massive cloud of white smoke billowing out of the warehouses near the port and smaller fires burning away in the periphery. A few seconds into the videos, a second, even bigger explosion, sent a shockwave rippling through the city that incinerated buildings nearby, caused extensive damage in a several-mile radius, was heard from the neighboring country, and was registered by the United States Geological Survey as a 3.3 local magnitude earthquake. 

Official reports confirmed the worst, with early estimates suggesting that at least 157 had died and more than 5,000 had been injured in the explosion. Beirut Governor Marwan Abboud shared that at least 300,000 had been left homeless by the explosions, reported Al Jazeera, with the Lebanese government declaring a two-week state of emergency in the country.