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The Lebanese authorities predict that both the death toll and the number of wounded will increase significantly.
President Michel Aoun said the explosion was caused by 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored unsafe in the port for 6 years. The incident in Lebanon promises a two-week state of emergency.
Officials are conducting an investigation to try to determine the circumstances that have led to the explosion of ammonium nitrate stored in the port since 2013. Ammonium nitrate is an explosive substance, but an explosive charge is also required to cause such a reaction.
“This is a disaster in every sense of the word,” the minister said in an interview with several television channels during a visit to one of the hospitals in the Lebanese capital.
During the explosions in the port of Beirut, huge fireballs and mushroom-shaped clouds of smoke rose into the sky, and shock waves destroyed buildings and smashed windows within a few kilometers.
In downtown Beirut, blood-soaked wounded crawled through rubble and burning buildings. A former soldier at the port, who wanted his name not to be made public, told AFP: “There is a real disaster inside. The corpses lie on the ground. Ambulances continue to transport the dead. “
Relatives of the people who worked at the epicenter of the explosion gathered at the barricades of the security services, fearfully awaiting the knowledge of the people they love.
Explosions in Beirut
The sound of explosions was heard even in the Cypriot capital, Nicosia, 240 kilometers from Beirut.
Makrouhie Yerganian, a retiree in her 75s and former teacher who has lived near the port for decades, said an “atomic bomb” was shown to have detonated.
“I have experienced everything, but so far none of it,” the woman admitted, even during the civil war in Lebanon in 1975-1990.
“All the buildings around it collapsed. “Wherever you go, glass and debris, it’s dark,” added the witness to the event.
The Lebanese Red Cross reported “hundreds of injuries” and asked the population to donate blood urgently.
Security director Abbas Ibrahim has speculated that materials long confiscated in the city’s port may have exploded.
“It appears that there was a warehouse there that had materials confiscated many years ago. It appears that these materials were very explosive, “he said.
An Israeli government source, who asked not to be identified, told AFP: “Israel has nothing to do with this incident.”
Benjamin Strickassavo of the investigative journalism website Bellingcat writes in a Twitter post that the epicenter of the blast was likely a 130-meter-long gray warehouse near the pier in the port area.
Retired US nuclear physicist Cheryl Rofer wrote on Twitter that the “red cloud” rising during the explosion indicates that “it is very likely [kad detonavo] ammonium nitrate]- conventional but highly explosive agricultural fertilizers.
Prime Minister Hassan Diab declared a day of mourning on Wednesday and President Michel Aoun urgently called a Defense Council meeting.
“We saw a mushroom”
AFP images show entire neighborhoods of the city almost completely destroyed, like toys thrown and overturned, warehouses level with the ground.
Soldiers tried to drive stunned civilians off the streets, many of whom were splattered with blood from head to toe.
Volunteers took the injured to medical points, tearing off their shirts with makeshift bandages to stop bleeding from deep wounds on the face and body.
“We heard the explosion, then we saw the fungus,” said one resident, who saw the second deafening explosion from the balcony of his apartment in the Mansuria district.
Explosions in Beirut
“The shock wave brought us back to the apartment,” added the woman.
An AFP correspondent at the scene said all the shops in the Hamra shopping district were damaged, dozens of shop windows and arches smashed and many cars destroyed.
Dozens of bloodied people, including children, were flown to and from the nearby Clemenceau Medical Center in hopes of receiving medical help.
A large fire broke out in the harbor and helicopters spilled water on the burning buildings. At least one ship parked in the harbor also caught fire.
Security forces surrounded the port area, allowing only ambulances and fire trucks and people whose family members worked in the area.
The explosions rocked debt-affected Lebanon in the face of the worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, exacerbated by quarantine measures introduced by the new coronavirus.
Explosions in Beirut
The country is also looking forward to a verdict in the case of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005. Billionaire R. Hariri was killed in an explosion in central Beirut. The court is to announce the verdict on Friday.
Four members of the Lebanese Shiite paramilitary movement Hezbollah are being tried in the Netherlands for a suicide bombing in Beirut that killed a Sunni Hariri and 21 others.
A woman told the AFP news center in the center of the capital: “It was like an earthquake … It turned out to me that it was more powerful than the 2005 explosion that killed Hariri.”
Tensions persist in Lebanon’s relations with Israel, which has announced that it has prevented five Hezbollah fighters from infiltrating into the territory of the Jewish state.
The Iranian-backed movement rejected these allegations.
#BREAK – Injuries to #Beirut, #Lebanon they are “in the thousands”, according to local media.
The video shows the massive explosion in slow motion. pic.twitter.com/btwPiDmIlo
– SV News 🚨 (@SVNewsAlerts) August 4, 2020
This is the time when an explosion occurred in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
The blast appeared to be centered around the city’s port area containing warehouses and spread to various areas of the capital.
Get the latest on this story here: https://t.co/UH3Jscyfkr pic.twitter.com/lIzHr7CPio
– SkyNews (@SkyNews) August 4, 2020
An AFP correspondent at the scene said all stores in the Hamra shopping district were damaged, dozens of shop windows and shop windows smashed and many cars destroyed.
The wounded walked the streets of the city, and scores of bloody people, including children, were taken to the nearby Clemenceau Medical Center.
A huge cloud of smoke rose into the sky above the port area, an AFP correspondent said.
Loud explosions were heard in much of the city and beyond; Electricity has been lost in some areas.
BREAKING: Live after a massive explosion in Beirut. https://t.co/SyEH5X94Ra
– NBC News (@NBCNews) August 4, 2020
“The buildings are shaking,” wrote a resident of the capital on the social network Twitter.
“Beirut has just been shaken by a powerful inflamed explosion. I heard it from miles away,” wrote another Twitter user.
Images of the port of Beirut immediately after the explosion#Beirut #Lebanon pic.twitter.com/pvDrMk8AWI
– CNW (@ConflictsW) August 4, 2020
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