Massive blast rips through Beirut, killing 78 and injuring thousands

  • Highly explosive materials were stored at port, says minister
  • Blast felt in Cyprus, more than 100 miles (160 km) away
  • Lebanon's Red Cross chief calls it "a huge catastrophe"
  • Israel says it had no role, ready to help Lebanon
  • Blast rocks Lebanese port area

BEIRUT: A powerful blast in port warehouses near central Beirut storing highly explosive material killed 78 people, injured nearly 4,000 and sent seismic shockwaves 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 fertilisers 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 on Wednesday and said a two-week state of emergency should be declared.

Hariri was killed by a huge truck bomb on the same waterfront, about 2 km (about one mile) from the port.

Israeli officials said Israel, which has fought several wars with Lebanon, had nothing to do with Tuesday's blast and said their country was ready to give humanitarian and medical assistance. Shi'ite Iran, the main backer of Hezbollah, also offered support, as did Tehran's regional rival Saudi Arabia, a leading Sunni power. Qatar and Iraq said they were sending makeshift hospitals to assist the high numbers of casualties.

The United States, Britain, France and Germany expressed shock and sympathy and said they were read to help.

US President Donald Trump indicated at a White House briefing that the explosion was a possible attack. Asked later to elaborate, Trump said that he had met with some US generals who felt it was not "some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event."

Two US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said initial information contradicted Trump's view, however.

The blast threatens a new humanitarian crisis in a nation that hosts hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and which is already grappling with economic meltdown under one of the world's biggest debt burdens.

Images showed port buildings reduced to tangled masonry, devastating the main entry point to a country that relies on food imports to feed its population of more than 6 million.

Residents said glass was broken in neighbourhoods on Beirut's Mediterranean coast and inland suburbs several km (miles) away. In Cyprus, a Mediterranean island 110 miles (180 km) across the sea from Beirut, residents heard the blast. One resident in Nicosia said his house and window shutters shook.