'Close the windows': Lebanon power plant sparks cancer fears — in pictures

Residents of Zouk Mikael believe they are more likely to develop cancer than elsewhere in the country

After losing four relatives to respiratory illness, Zeina Matar fled her hometown north of Lebanon's capital Beirut, where she says a decaying power plant generates little electricity but very deadly pollution. Thick black smoke sometimes billows from its red and white chimneys, leaving a grey haze in the air above the Zouk Mikael industrial district, where the toxins remain trapped by a nearby mountain chain. All photos: AFP

Ms Matar, 40, says she lost her younger sister and a cousin to pulmonary fibrosis and that two of her uncles died of lung cancer years earlier. They all lived near the plant where, experts and residents believe, air pollution means people are more likely to develop cancer and respiratory disease than anywhere else in the crisis-torn country.

A Greenpeace study found that the surrounding Jounieh area was ranked fifth in the Arab world and 23rd globally for cities most contaminated by nitrogen dioxide, a dangerous pollutant released when fuel is burnt. The environmental group's 2018 study singled out the Zouk plant, built in the 1940s, as well as cars on a busy motorway and privately owned electricity generators as the main causes of pollution.

The walls of Ms Matar's balconies in her old Zouk Mikael home are blackened by the smoke, and laundry she used to hang outside would be damaged by toxic chemicals emanating from the plant, she said. 'Whenever they refilled the station with fuel oil, we would close the windows,' she said. 'The smell was unbearable.'

Another former resident is Paul Makhlouf, a lung doctor at the Notre Dame du Liban Hospital in Jounieh, who said he abandoned his local apartment after noticing a rise in respiratory disease among patients. In 2014, he found that lung ailments had increased by 3 per cent in patients living near the plant, compared with the previous year, an annual rise he estimates has now doubled. 'When I saw the results, I moved from there,' he said. 'I fled.'

Pictures went viral online last month of thick black smoke again billowing from the Zouk plant as it burnt low-quality fuel oil to produce only one hour of power that day. The energy ministry said the plant had been forced to use heavy fuel to 'keep supplying the airport, hospitals and other vital institutions' with electricity. Since then, the plant has mostly operated at night.

Elie Beaino, who heads the Zouk municipality, said a second plant, which built without authorisation in 2014, runs somewhat more cleanly on higher-quality fuel or gas. However, it stopped working as its operators cannot afford higher-quality hydrocarbons. 'Most residents want the power plants to close down,' he said.

Member of Parliament Najat Saliba, an atmospheric chemist, said residents near Zouk are at least seven times more likely to develop cancer than those in Beirut, citing a 2018 study she helped write for the American University of Beirut.

She said the heavy fuel oil it uses releases harmful chemicals. 'The solution is to import quality fuel oil and gas,' Ms Saliba said. However, she noted that Lebanon cannot afford those fuels.

"We have two options today," she said. "To switch the lights off at the airport and in hospitals, or to sit under a black cloud in Zouk."

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