Lebanon's Minister of Health: We lack everything

The explosions in the Lebanese capital Beirut were so strong that they could be felt all the way to Cyprus. Almost a day later, the rescue workers are fighting a battle against the clock to unearth the survivors who may still be found under the shattered glass and metal debris in the completely destroyed districts.

But the situation at the city's hospital has been strained in the past, partly due to the coronavirus, and the death toll, which now stands at over 100 people, is expected to rise.

- We need everything to treat the injured, and there is a lack of everything, says Lebanon's Minister of Health Hamad Hasan.

Many Beirut residents have spent the night trying to find their relatives. It has been made more difficult by the fact that there has been no electricity, says Hamad Hasan.

The lack of electricity has also made it difficult for rescue workers to continue their work during the night, instead some of the work has had to be resumed when the sun rose on Wednesday.

At least four large hospitals were so damaged that they could not receive patients and several paramedics lost their lives in the explosion.

At one of the hospitals, a nurse took with her three newborns who were in neonatal care out of the ward where the windows had been blown out and the roof collapsed. The explosion is also believed to have destroyed a layer of medicine.

Joseph Haddad, physician at St. George Hospital, was on his way home when the explosion occurred. When he returned to the hospital, it was in ruins.

- Patients went down the stairs. The elevators did not work. They went from as high up as the ninth floor. It was like an apocalyptic hell, he tells the New York Times.

Lebanon's internal security chief Abbas Ibrahim tells Reuters that for a number of years now, highly explosive material has been stored in the port area where the explosions took place. But exactly what was the igniting spark has not emerged.

The entire metropolitan area is now classified by the country's security council as a "disaster zone" and Lebanese President Michel Aoun announced that a state of emergency should be declared throughout the country over the next two weeks.