The death toll from yesterday’s explosions is now one hundred dead and more than 4,000 injured, however, many others still lack collapsed buildings. Some ships in Beirut’s port were killed and wounded on board. Hospitals are full, while drug depots have been destroyed. Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab enlisted help from the foreign community. Lebanon’s security leader said 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate had exploded, but still distrusts imaginable causes. Israel has denied any responsibility. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah postponed a speech he was meant to deliver.
Beirut (AsiaNews) – Lebanon’s Supreme Defence Council held an emergency meeting last night at the Presidential Palace, describing Beirut as a “devastated city” after a double blast struck at 6.15 pm killing at least a hundred people and injuring more than 4,000.
The Council declared a two-week state of emergency and set up a commission of inquiry to shed light on what happened within five days. Lebanon’s military are now in charge of security in Lebanese cities as well as borders and customs.
This morning the city looks like a post-nuclear site. The explosions blew out windows in buildings in every neighbourhood in the capital, cars wrecked or upturned, shop shutters bent, doors torn off their hinges.
People say the force of the explosions was “unprecedented”, with an atomic bomb-like mushroom cloud hovering in the sky for many hours. The explosion in Beirut’s port area sowed destruction within a radius of ten kilometres; but the shock wave was felt and sound heard as far away as Tyre and Cyprus.
Preliminary effects of the explosions occurred in a warehouse containing 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate.
According to the official version, the curtains originally intended for counter-regime fighters in Syria, but seized in 2014 in Tripoli , northern Lebanon) and taken to the port of Beirut. After that, he forgot in a warehouse, a virtual time bomb.
The head of the Directorate-General for Security, Major General Abbas Ibrahim, ruled out any explanation of the explosions.
So far, a hundred bodies have been recovered, whilst the search for more continues. The number of injured has topped 4,000. More and more pictures of missing people are popping up on social media with requests for information.
The apocalyptic scenario has led many analysts to speculate whether it was a small nuclear bomb; others claim to have heard the sound of military planes before the explosions.
Lebanon is now totally isolated from the outside. Beirut’s port area, which handled 80 per cent of the country’s imports, is a wasteland and out of order.
Since the land borders with Syria are also closed, supplies, already in shortage, can only arrive by plane and through the smaller Port of Tripoli.
In the capital, the Karantina (Quarantine) government hospital where COVID-19 patients are treated, located one kilometre from the port, and the Health Ministry’s medicine warehouse were destroyed.
Tons of cancer drugs and HIV-positive patients have smoked in a country already in the midst of a terrible economic crisis.
Meanwhile, the number of wounded expands from minute to minute. Entire buildings collapsed upon other people who are now a lie under the rubble. Some other people are trapped in boats in the harbor, others would possibly sink due to damage, sending SOS messages indicating dead and injured on board.
In central Beirut, Nazar Najarian, the secretary-general of the Lebanese Phalanges Party (Kataeb), died from head injuries caused by flying glass. The Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Lebanon was among the diplomats who were injured.
Local hospitals are at full capacity. Civil protection, the army and the Lebanese Red Cross are doing everything they can to address it, but the crisis exceeds the country’s capabilities.
In an official statement, Israel denied any involvement in the explosions. However, in Beirut, others communicate about a mysterious tweet that gave the impression in Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s account 3 hours before the explosions in which he threatened retaliation against Hezbollah. Another Netanyahu tweet last night presented humanitarian aid to Lebanon.
Iraq was the first country to come to The Rescue of Lebanon with medicines, but the messages and promises of help come from all over the world.
In a brief speech, Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab called for foreigners from Lebanon’s friendly countries and brothers, promising not to prevent until the culprits of the crisis are punished.
Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah postponed an expected televised confrontation today, days before a foreign court, the Special Court for Lebanon, ruled the assassination of Rafik Hariri. He blames the members of Hezbollah and the Syrian government.
The death toll from yesterday’s explosions is now one hundred dead and more than 4,000 injured, however, many others still lack collapsed buildings. Some ships in Beirut’s port were killed and wounded on board. Hospitals are full, while drug depots have been destroyed. Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab enlisted help from the foreign community. Lebanon’s security leader said 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate had exploded, but still distrusts imaginable causes. Israel has denied any responsibility. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah postponed a speech he was meant to deliver.