To Ensure Capital's Residents' Safety: Beirut Municipality and Engineers' Union Launch New Building Survey Initiative

Beirut Municipality and the Beirut Engineers' Union signed a cooperation protocol to ensure technical, engineering, and scientific support and carry out necessary studies for surveying, assessing, classifying, and updating building data, thereby enhancing public safety and safeguarding the capital's residents.

The Public Relations Office of Beirut Municipality stated in a press release that Beirut Governor Judge Marwan Abou Abdallah held a meeting in his office, attended by Municipal Council President Engineer Ibrahim Zaydan, President of the Beirut Engineers' Union Fadi Hanna, General Secretary of the Higher Relief Authority Colonel Bassam Al-Nabulsi, along with several members of the municipal council and the Engineers' Union Council, Secretary-General of the Union Engineer Haytham Ismail, Director of the Engineering Department at the municipality Engineer Jihad Al-Baqaa, Head of the Buildings Division Engineer Hani Al-Arabs, and several advisors and engineers.

The participants discussed Beirut's need for a new guiding plan to preserve its urban identity, regulate building heights and setbacks, manage public space distribution, and classify streets, all to enhance safety and improve the urban landscape.

The meeting also addressed the issue of cracked and collapsing buildings. Colonel Al-Nabulsi presented Tripoli’s experience in classifying buildings according to risk levels, while Engineer Hani Al-Arabs presented results from previous surveys, particularly those conducted after the 2023 earthquake, emphasizing the importance of updating these records and conducting new surveys.

Additionally, the discussion included launching an electronic platform enabling citizens to report building conditions and attach photos, helping identify the most dangerous structures and accelerate responses.

At the end of the meeting, Beirut Municipality and the Engineers' Union signed a cooperation protocol to unify efforts in surveying, assessing, classifying buildings, updating their data, establishing mechanisms for handling cracked and collapsing buildings, and securing technical, engineering, scientific support and necessary studies.