‘VICTIMS EVERYWHERE’
78 dead, 4,000 hurt after blast rocks Beirut
BEIRUT — A powerful blast in port warehouses near central Beirut storing highly explosive material killed 78 people, injured nearly 4,000 and sent seismic shock waves that shattered windows, smashed masonry and shook the ground across the Lebanese capital.
Officials said they expected the death toll to rise further after Tuesday’s blast as emergency workers dug through rubble to rescue people and remove the dead.
It was the most powerful explosion in years in Beirut, which is already reeling from an economic crisis and a surge in coronavirus infections.
President Michel Aoun said that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, used in fertilizers and bombs, had been stored for six years at the port without safety measures, and said it was “unacceptable.”
He called for an emergency cabinet meeting Wednesday and said a two-week state of emergency should be declared.
“What we are witnessing is a huge catastrophe,” the head of Lebanon’s Red Cross, George Kettani, told broadcaster Mayadeen.
“There are victims and casualties everywhere.”
Hours after the blast, which struck shortly after 6 p.m., a fire still blazed in the port district, casting an orange glow across the night sky as helicopters hovered and ambulance sirens sounded across the capital.
A security source said victims were taken for treatment outside the city because Beirut hospitals were overwhelmed with wounded.
Ambulances from the north and south of the country and the Bekaa valley to the east were called in to help.
The huge blast revived memories of the 1975-90 civil war and its aftermath, when Lebanese endured heavy shelling, car bombings and Israeli air raids.
Some residents thought an earthquake had struck.
Dazed, weeping and injured people walked through streets searching for relatives.
Others sought their missing loved ones in the overflowing hospitals.
One medic said 200-300 people had been admitted to a single emergency department.
“I’ve never seen this. It was horrible,” the medic, who gave her name as Rouba, told Reuters.
“The blast blew me off metres away. I was in a daze and was all covered in blood. It brought back the vision of another explosion I witnessed against the U.S. embassy in 1983,” said Huda
Baroudi, a Beirut designer. Prime Minister Hassan Diab told the nation there’d be accountability for the deadly blast at the “dangerous warehouse,” adding that “those responsible will pay the price.”
Footage of the explosion shared by residents on social media showed a column of smoke rising from the port, followed by an enormous blast, sending up a white cloud and a fireball into the sky.
Those filming the incident from high buildings 2 km from the port were thrown backward by the shock.
Officials did not say what caused the blaze that set off the blast.
A security source and local media said it was started by welding work being carried out on a hole in the warehouse.