Several dozens killed and thousands injured
Two massive explosions devastated Beirut’s port on Tuesday evening, leaving at least 73 people dead and thousands injured, shaking distant buildings and spreading panic and chaos across the Lebanese capital at the time of writing, reports the French AFP news agency.
The second blast sent an enormous orange fireball into the sky, immediately followed by a tornado-like shockwave that flattened the port and swept the city, shattering windows kilometers away.
Prime Minister Hassan Diab said that 2,750 tons of the agricultural fertilizer ammonium nitrate that had been stored for years in a port-side warehouse had blown up, sparking ‘a disaster in every sense of the word’.
Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi told a local TV station that it appeared the blast was caused by the detonation of more than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been stored in a warehouse at the dock ever since it was confiscated from a cargo ship in 2014. Witnesses reported seeing an orange cloud like that which appears when toxic nitrogen dioxide gas is released after an explosion involving nitrates.
Bloodied and dazed wounded people stumbled among the debris, glass shards and burning buildings in central Beirut. Blast was equivalent to around three kilotons of TNT, 20% of the size of the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
General Security Chief Abbas Ibrahim earlier said the highly explosive material had been confiscated years earlier and stored in the warehouse, just minutes walk from Beirut’s shopping and nightlife districts.
The blasts were so massive they shook the entire city and could be heard throughout the small country, and as far away as Nicosia on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus, 240 kilometers away.
(Three days into the blast, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported 157 deaths and over 5000 injured. Other agencies also reported over 60 missing and unaccounted for–Editor)
