A massive explosion occurred just days ago in Beirut, Lebanon. We've since seen images and videos of the tragic event, but one video, in particular, is absolutely astonishing. The video was captured when Dr. Israa Seblani, a 29-year-old US citizen from Detroit, was in the middle of a photo shoot. She looked gorgeous in her wedding gown, posing alongside her groom. Then the blast struck.
The explosion sent everyone running. Dr. Seblani says she feared for her life. "I was shocked. I was wondering what happened," she said. "Am I going to die? How I'm going to die?"
The footage has now gone viral, and it's easy to see why. It looks like something out of a fairy tale at first. Seblani looks stunning in her dress. As the camera pans down toward her feet, the blast strikes. Then the scene instantly resembles a horror film. The camera pans toward the smoke. You can hear yelling and screaming. It's simply chaotic.
Everyone remembers their wedding day. Usually, it's a very happy, magical time. But for Seblani and her now-husband, the memories of the day they wed will be quite different. The scene was all captured on video as Seblani was posing in her gown, just before the blast struck.
The couple couldn't believe what was happening. They simply ran as fast as they could to get out of harm's way. "We started to walk around and it was extremely sad, it was not describable the devastation and the sound of the explosion," her husband, Ahmad Subeih, told Reuters. "We are still in shock … I have never heard anything similar to the sound of this explosion."
The couple, who made it out unharmed, was lucky. At least 135 people lost their lives and more than 5,000 suffered injuries. Now the couple feels grateful to be alive. "I feel so sad about what happened to other people, about what happened to Lebanon," Seblani said. "When I woke up and saw the damage that happened to Beirut, the one thing I said was thank God we are still alive."
At first, no one knew what caused the massive explosion. Now news outlets are reporting that it may have been caused by an accidental fire that ignited a warehouse full of ammonium nitrate at the city's port. French President Emmanuel Macron said his visit Thursday was "an opportunity to have a frank and challenging dialogue with the Lebanese political powers and institutions."
Seblani helped tend to the wounded after the blast.
Then, even though they were quite shaken after the event, they proceeded with their plans. Seblani and her husband continued with their celebrations, she said. "My husband told me to continue, we can't stop. I was like okay, why not, we continue. I was not living the moment actually, I was like walking, my face was smiling, my lips were smiling, that's it, not more. Then we went to have a dinner."
Seblani's husband is waiting for a visa to the United States so he can join her in living there. After the blast, the two do not want to live in Lebanon out of fear of something similar happening. After what they experienced first-hand, that's pretty easy to understand.
Now the two are trying to move on with their lives. In doing so, they are focusing on gratitude, rather than being angry that their wedding day didn't happen like they planned. "There is a lot of damage, many people were killed and wounded. But also if I want to look at us, myself, my husband, the photographer — how we escaped unharmed, I thank God for protecting us."
"This alone makes me feel optimistic and to keep the joy of the occasion that I came here to celebrate," she said. Given how massive the blast was, they certainly were lucky. It caused an immense amount of damage as far as 6 miles away from the explosion site.
Mahmoud Nakib, the couple's wedding photographer, is the one who captured the footage. Nakib told CNN about the now-viral video. "We were filming an outdoor photo session for the [bride and groom], then we heard an explosion. That was the first explosion, we thought that is was far away, we continued filming normally."
"The area I was in — within matter of seconds — it went from beautiful place to ghost town filled with dust, shattered glass and people yelling [and] bleeding," Seblani said. "It was like a nightmare scene."
Like most people, the couple will always remember their wedding day. However, for Seblani and her husband, the biggest feeling they will recall is fear, rather than joy.
