Tue 04 August 2020:
Hundreds of people have been wounded in a huge blast that ripped through Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, according to the country’s health minister.
The massive explosion on Tuesday at Beirut’s port released a shockwave which caused widespread damage to buildings, shattering windows in different parts of the city.
The cause of the blast remained unknown.
Hamad Hassan, Lebanon’s health minister, said hundreds were wounded in the explosion.
It comes at a sensitive time with the country’s economic collapse reigniting old tensions.
Tensions are also high ahead of the verdict in a trial over the killing of ex-PM Rafik Hariri in 2005. A UN tribunal is due to issue its verdict in the trial of four suspects in the murder by car bomb of Hariri on Friday.
Lebanon’s health minister, Hamad Hasan, has spoken of many injuries and extensive damage.
Reuters news agency quotes sources as saying 10 bodies have been pulled from the wreckage.
The cause of the explosion is still not known, but some reports suggest it may have been an accident. Lebanon’s National News Agency reported a fire breaking out at what it called an explosives depot at the port.
On the morning of 14 February 2005, Rafik Hariri – then an MP who aligned himself with the opposition in parliament – was travelling in a motorcade when the explosion went off in a busy area full of hotels and banks, causing widespread damage.
Mr Hariri had been one of Lebanon’s most prominent Sunni politicians and, at the time of his death, had joined calls for Syria to withdraw troops which had been in Lebanon since 1976 following the start of the civil war.
The killing brought tens of thousands of demonstrators on to the streets in protest against the pro-Syrian government, with the finger of blame for the assassination pointed at Lebanon’s heavily influential neighbour.
Within two weeks the government resigned and weeks after that, Syria withdrew its forces.
After collecting evidence, the UN and Lebanon set up the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) in The Hague in 2007 to investigate the bombing, and ultimately charged four suspects of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group with terrorism, murder and attempted murder.
A fifth man linked to the attack, Hezbollah military commander Mustafa Amine Badreddine, was killed in Syria in 2016.
Hezbollah’s supporters have dismissed the trial, suggesting that the STL process is not politically neutral.
Video of the incident on social media shows a large column of smoke billowing from above an area of the port that houses large warehouses, before a large orange blast is seen and a massive dome-shaped blast wave shoots into the air.
Glass storefronts and windowless across the city were instantly shattered in the blast while videos and pictures shared on social media showed doors ripped form their hinges and ceilings filled with gaping holes.
The blast wave from the explosion caused extensive damage to buildings within a large radius of the blast site.
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