Yesterday, a big explosion occurred in the Beirut port, causing deaths and thousands of injuries and great destruction in different parts of the Lebanese capital, where the residents panicked, while the devastation spread throughout the capital. His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, expressed his condolences to the families of the victims of the explosion. His Highness said in a tweet on his account on the social networking site "Twitter": "Our condolences to our beloved people in Lebanon ... Oh God, have mercy on those who moved to you ... Oh God, kindest to its people ... Oh God, give the people of Lebanon patience and solace."
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, also expressed his condolences to the victims of the explosion, and said in a tweet through his official account on Twitter: “We stand with the brotherly Lebanese people in these difficult circumstances and confirm our solidarity with it. .. And we ask God Almighty to relieve them and to be kind to them, to have mercy on their dead and to heal their wounded .. Oh God, protect Lebanon and its people from all harm. ”
In detail, 30 people were killed and 2,500 injured, yesterday, in a huge explosion, which took place in Beirut Port, according to an initial toll announced by the Minister of Health, Dr. Hamad Hassan.
Hassan said, during his visit to a Beirut hospital, to reporters: "It is a disaster in every sense of the word," calling for the transfer of minor injuries to hospitals in the suburbs of the capital, after Beirut hospitals filled with the wounded.
A Lebanese security source said that the explosion that rocked the capital occurred in the port of Beirut, near the center of the capital, indicating two successive explosions. The Lebanese President, Michel Aoun, held an emergency meeting of the Supreme Defense Council yesterday, during which he discussed the explosion.
The Lebanese Prime Minister, Hassan Diab, announced today, Wednesday, a national day of mourning for the victims of the explosion at Beirut Port.
The Lebanese Interior Minister's office said that preliminary information indicates that high-explosive materials, confiscated for years, exploded in the Beirut Port area.
The Director General of Public Security, Major General Abbas Ibrahim, said that the amber that exploded in the Beirut port contained highly explosive materials. The explosion resulted in a number of deaths and injuries and severe damage to buildings and cars.
The Lebanese National Media Agency said that the explosion also caused major damage to buildings and cars in Karantina, Ashrafieh, and Hamra, and the areas surrounding the explosion site, and the building was also damaged.
The Red Cross teams assisted the injured, and transported them to hospitals.
The head of the Lebanese Red Cross, Georges Kettana, reported that "the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation" reported "hundreds of wounded" and said: "There are also victims."
One of the doctors at Hotel Dieu Hospital told the same channel that the number of wounded had reached 500, urging that no more be brought to the hospital.
The Minister of Health demanded that all hospitals receive the wounded, as a result of the explosion, at the expense of the Ministry of Public Health.
The explosion, according to Lebanese media, injured the Secretary General of the "Lebanese Phalanges" Party, Nizar Najarian, and his condition is critical and he is in a coma.
"The size of the damage is great, and the number of injuries is very high," as a result of the explosion, the Lebanese television channel LBC quoted.
Initial information indicated that the explosion was caused by the highly explosive TNT, which reached the port after it was opened after it was closed for five days due to the Corona virus.
Reports stated that the location of the accident was inside Beirut Port, especially Amber No. 12, which is a store for explosives.
The explosion occurred at six o'clock in the afternoon, and it completely shook the capital and affected all its neighborhoods, as glass fell in a large number of buildings, shops and cars. People on the Lebanese island of Cyprus, facing Lebanon, also heard the explosion.
At the scene of the explosion, a soldier told AFP: "There is a tragedy inside. There are a lot of bodies on the ground and ambulances are still working to transport the wounded."
An army helicopter filled water from the sea to put out the fire on the site. A ship was also seen burning at the port.
I saw a journalist at Agence France-Presse at the Hotel Dieu hospital, an old man covered in blood from head to toe, and a woman who entered her crying with her two daughters filled with blood on their faces. Parts of one of the neighboring emergency areas were severely damaged.
Journalists at Agence France-Presse saw parked and abandoned cars in the middle of the street near the harbor, and were severely damaged.
Two witnesses told an AFP journalist at the scene of the explosion that hundreds of wounded people were lying on the land of the port.
Security forces blocked all roads leading to the port, and journalists were prevented from approaching.
One of the Lebanese wrote on Twitter: "The volume of the sound and the roar lasted for a few seconds, and I have never heard anything like it in my life."
"I felt something like an earthquake, and then the explosion went off," a woman in the center of the capital told a France Press journalist. I felt stronger than the 2005 explosion that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. ”
The explosion comes shortly before the ruling, on Friday, in the assassination of Rafik Hariri in 2005, along with 21 other people, in the center of the capital, with a huge explosion.
In the context of the reactions, the US Department of Defense announced that it was following with concern the situation in Lebanon.
The governor of Beirut crying: What happened is more like Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Beirut Governor Marwan Abboud shed tears as he spoke about the huge explosion that shook the Lebanese capital yesterday evening.
Abboud said, in a statement to «Sky News Arabia», that 10 members of the firefighters disappeared, and no information about them.
He added, "There was a fire at the beginning, after which the explosion occurred, whose causes we do not know," noting that the explosion "is similar to what happened in Japan, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
He continued: "This is a national catastrophe, this is a disaster for Lebanon."
While saying: “What is happening to the Lebanese people a lot,” Marwan Aboud shed tears live, in an impressive scene.
"I appeal to the Lebanese people for cohesion ... We are strong and we will remain strong," he concluded. About «Sky News Arabia»
Monitoring damage in "Al-Wasat house" .. Al-Hariri is fine
The huge explosion that shook the Lebanese capital, Beirut, caused damage to "the center house", the residence of former Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who safely escaped from the site.
Hussein Al-Wajj, media adviser to Saad Hariri, commented in a tweet on his official page on Twitter, which included the image of Hariri, speaking on his private phone, saying: “President Saad Hariri a thousand good .. Praise be to God.”
A video clip documented the material damage that affected "Al-Wasat House", the residence of Al-Hariri, in what appeared to be surrounded by a group of men, who were all exiting the site while they were "fine". About «Sky News Arabia»
Two journalists were injured in the explosion
The editor-in-chief of the Lebanese press, Joseph Al-Qusseifi, announced that "the An-Nahar newspaper building was badly and badly damaged by the explosion, and that there were 15 wounded among colleagues and workers, who were transferred to hospitals."
The explosion also resulted in the slight injury of journalists and a state of panic, as a result of the splash of glass in the building of the Ministries of Information and Tourism, the offices of the "National Information Agency", and Radio Lebanon. Beirut - d
Aoun holds an emergency meeting of the Supreme Council of Defense ... and a national mourning today in Lebanon.
Initial information indicates that high explosive materials were confiscated for years that exploded in the Beirut Port area.