LEBANON: French combat engineers begin repairing Araka bridge and oil cleanup efforts in Beirut gather speed as Israeli air and sea embargo is lifted

Record ID: 343808

  • Title: LEBANON: French combat engineers begin repairing Araka bridge and oil cleanup efforts in Beirut gather speed as Israeli air and sea embargo is lifted
  • Date: 11th September 2006
  • Summary: (W3) ARAKA, LEBANON (SEPTEMBER 10, 2006) (REUTERS) REMAINS OF ARAKA BRIDGE, DESTROYED BY ISRAELI MISSILES RIVER FROM ONE SIDE OF DESTROYED BRIDGE VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS WORKING AND EQUIPMENT VARIOUS OF FRENCH SOLDIERS CHOPPING PLANKS OF WOOD FOR BRIDGE RECONSTRUCTION FRENCH SOLDIERS CARRYING EQUIPMENT AND PLANKS OF WOOD SOLDIERS WORKING (SOUNDBITE) (English) UNIDENTIFIED FR
  • Embargoed: 26th September 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: International Relations,Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVABGWZJKYDCL0U0EXFXNAI9D383
  • Story Text: A contingent of French combat engineers from the Foreign Legion began repairing the Araka bridge in the northern Lebanon on Sunday (September 10).
    The contingent, of around sixty soldiers, arrived in the northern town of Araka on Saturday (September 9) to repair the bridge which was bombed repeatedly by Israeli jets during the Jewish state's 34-day with Shiite Lebanese Hizbollah guerillas.
    The French soldiers are rebuilding bridges in six locations across Lebanon and are part of a special division of the French Army which deals with reconstruction and transport.
    "We are very happy with the welcome of the population. I haven't got any problem," said the French unit's commander.
    They came to Lebanon within the framework of a bilateral agreement between France and Lebanon, and are not part of the French soldiers affiliated with UNIFIL.
    Israel destroyed most of Lebanon's bridges during its conflict with Hizbollah, claiming that the Lebanese guerilla group was using transport routes to rearm during the war.
    The Israeli military said its air force had attacked about 7,000 targets in Lebanon and the navy had fired 2,500 shells during the conflict, while 3,970 Hizbollah rockets hit Israel.
    Meanwhile in Beirut environmentalists have redoubled their efforts to cleanup traces of an oil spill from local beaches.
    The slick has settled along a 140-km (87-mile) stretch of coastline after Israeli jets hit storage tanks at the Jiyyeh power plant in southern Beirut on July 13 and 15, causing up to 10,000-15,000 tonnes of oil to spill into the Mediterranean Sea and cover the coastline with black sludge.
    "The equipment is all on the way (after the blockade was lifted) in one or two weeks we will have everything. There is some other equipment that may be needed that Bahr Loubnan will buy, because we have taken it upon ourselves to clean the sea in Lebanon from the north to the south," said Mounal Nader, the head of the Lebanese environmental group, Bahr Loubnan.
    Because of the different types of beaches, Nader says the cleanup operation has been made more complicated as different equipment is needed to clean each type of beach.
    "Every beach is different, this makes the assessment difficult in this stage. The methods used to clean pebbled beaches is different to those used for sandy beaches. It's difficult to say how much time is needed to clean all of the Lebanese coast but we are hoping to finish [the cleanup operation] before the winter, so in a month and a half or two months," explained Nader.
    The spill is the biggest environmental catastrophe in Lebanon's history and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has compared it with a 1999 disaster off the coast of France, when the Erika tanker spilled an estimated 13,000 tonnes of oil into the Atlantic Ocean.
    Shellfish, fish larvae and baby turtles have been badly hit with the oil spill but larger fish have survived virtually unscathed by the oil spill, Bahr Loubnan had reported last week.
    Some environmentalists have said the oil could kill large fish and even dolphins, but Bahr Loubnan said that was unlikely.
    Kuwait and Norway have sent chemicals and equipment to clean up the oil, which is mostly heavy fuel and tough to remove.
    The United Nations, Mediterranean environment ministers and other experts have approved a 50-million-euro ($64.47 million) plan to deal with the slick, which has spread up Lebanon's coast and to the Syrian shoreline.
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