Citizens are leading the response to the tragic Beirut blast. This speaks volumes about Lebanon

Ever since the explosion, residents have repeatedly picked up the pieces. Is it any wonder when the government is missing in action, asks Bel Trew

Search teams look for survivors in the rubble of a building destroyed in the Beirut blast (Reuters)

It was leaning towards midnight, on the kind of simmering evening when you cannot tell if you are breathing or your lungs are gently drowning in the humidity.  

Thickening the air was rage.  

The Lebanese military had just called off a search for an unlikely but still possible survivor of the massive blast which ripped through Beirut a month beforehand. A volunteer Chilean rescue team and Lebanese civil defence had been scrambling through a partially collapsed four storey building which was about to completely fall down.