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What actually happened.
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Picture of Lebanon after the small blast.

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Picture of Lebanon after the small blast.

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Once a home now a piles of rock and sand.

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Once a home now a piles of rock and sand.

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34 Refugees killed in Lebanon blast.
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An audio recording taken by Omar Abou Mrad at St. George Hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, where his son Yuri is a cancer patient, shows the sheer terror of the moment.

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new video loaded: 'Are You OK?': Audio Captures Father and Son in Beirut Hospital Minutes After Blast

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'Are You OK?': Audio Captures Father and Son in Beirut Hospital Minutes After Blast

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new video loaded: 'Are You OK?': Audio Captures Father and Son in Beirut Hospital Minutes After Blast Recent episodes in International International video coverage from The New York Times. International video coverage from The New York Times. Show more videos from International

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Beirut’s Youngest Cancer Patients Lose Care Options After Blast

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Beirut’s Youngest Cancer Patients Lose Care Options After Blast

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Many children undergoing chemotherapy in Lebanon now have nowhere to turn for treatment after an explosion destroyed hospitals and wiped out medicine stockpiles.

Amanda Tawk was diagnosed with cancer in December. Credit... Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

The children being treated at Beirut's St. George Hospital built an extended family with each other, painting and dancing together when they had the energy and rubbing each other's backs when they vomited after chemotherapy sessions.

Now, these cancer-stricken children are struggling to keep up with their treatment, and preserve the bonds they developed with each other over sometimes years of treatment, after a powerful blast ripped through Beirut last week and took their hospital - their home away from home - with it.

The blast destroyed four hospitals in Beirut, including St. George, one of the largest in the country, leaving many dozens of Lebanon's youngest cancer patients with nowhere to go for care.

Adding to their trauma, many children were at St. George when the blast struck, causing widespread injuries and killing at least one of their parents.

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But any hospital left in Beirut is over capacity, tending to the 6,000 Lebanese injured in the blast.

A further complication: Lebanon's coronavirus numbers are surging, and Dr. Noun worries the children he treats - already immunocompromised because of their chemotherapy - could catch the virus and die.

"My home is now destroyed," Marita said in an interview. "This was my hospital. It's gone. I don't want to see my hospital die like this."

All the children interviewed for this article, and their parents, gave permission for their stories to be told and for their names to be published.

Marita and her mother, Amal Reaidy, woke up on Tuesday last week, excited they would be returning home to see Marita's father and sister after a weeklong chemotherapy session.

The patient said goodbye to all the nurses and bid farewell to Yuri Abou Mrad, who had become one of her closest friends. Yuri, 7, was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma last year.

St. George had become the only place where Yuri and Marita felt like normal children. No one gave them pitiful looks or stared at their bald heads.

Later that Tuesday evening, Yuri's father, Omar Abou Mrad, saw a fire raging at the port from a window at the hospital, perched on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean.

His son walked over to get a look, wheeling the metal contraption that carried his chemotherapy treatment.

The smoke turned black, and Yuri's father started to worry. He knew from his childhood during Lebanon's civil war that giant windows could become lethal, splintering into deadly shards after an explosion.

Seconds later, the blast came, its shock wave rippling across Beirut, destroying buildings in its path. At St. George, windows shattered, while parts of the ceiling collapsed on hospital beds, pinning patients down.

In the months before the blast - the result, according to Lebanese officials, of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate catching fire at the Beirut port - the country was already on the brink of collapse.

An economic crisis had devastated many of the middle-class families who go to St. George for affordable, quality care. As Lebanon's currency shed its value, the families struggled to afford the medicine and treatment their children needed.

But Dr. Noun always found a way to help them, they said. Now there is little he can do.

The blast badly damaged the government-run warehouse that stored imported medicine. The medicine stockpile at St. George was also destroyed.

The parents are now left to wonder: How can they save their children in a country that cannot save itself? In a country that would allow the ammonium nitrate to be stored at the port since 2014 despite repeated warnings to Lebanese officials about the dangers it posed?

Yuri's father said the family is considering leaving Lebanon for good.

"If it's too late for us, for my generation, I don't want it to be too late for my kids," Mr. Abou Mrad said. "I don't want them to grow up and turn 18 and only know this destruction and sadness."

Gobran Pierre Tawk, the father of another young St. George patient, moved back to Beirut from Australia in 2017, so his daughter, Amanda, 3, could be born in Lebanon. He opened a small business, and everything was going well. But it all started to fall apart last October, when the economy went into a tailspin and protests over government corruption and incompetence wracked the country.

Amanda was diagnosed with cancer in December, and she and her parents had been living in St. George since.

Like many other Lebanese, the blast left Mr. Tawk determined to emigrate, threatening to deprive Lebanon of the people it needs to rebuild.

On Monday, Amanda's Australian visa arrived, expedited by the country's embassy after the attack.

"I believe in Lebanon, but I am also a father," Mr. Tawk said. "My priority is to make sure Amanda is safe and happy. You have someone who is dying from cancer and it's her right to get treatment.

"I love my country," Mr. Tawk added. "But I should not have to worry about whether my children live or die here."

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Beirut's Youngest Cancer Patients Lose Care Options After Blast

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Many children undergoing chemotherapy in Lebanon now have nowhere to turn for treatment after an explosion destroyed hospitals and wiped out medicine stockpiles. The children being treated at Beirut's St. George Hospital built an extended family with each other, painting and dancing together when they had the energy and rubbing each other's backs when they vomited after chemotherapy sessions.

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Beirut Blast Hit 3 Disparate Neighborhoods. Now They’re United in Rage.

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Beirut Blast Hit 3 Disparate Neighborhoods. Now They’re United in Rage.

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What should we do to bring peace?
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After the Beirut Blast, Lebanon’s Whole Cabinet Quit. Now What?

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After the Beirut Blast, Lebanon’s Whole Cabinet Quit. Now What?

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Why the United Nation doesn't take any action?
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A sudden blast and a huge disaster.
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Beirut explosion: CCTV emerges from hospital during the blast

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What a huge disaster.
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Deadly blast
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