VIDEOS. Two major outbreaks have rocked Tuesday the area of the port of the lebanese capital. The origin is at this stage not known.
Two loud explosions rocked Tuesday the area of the port of the lebanese capital Beirut. The balance sheet is at this point 27 people dead and 2500 wounded by the blasts, according to a preliminary estimate, according to the minister of Health. Heavy outbreaks, which have occurred in the area of the port and the origin of which was not known in the immediate future, were heard in several areas of the city. Georges Kettaneh, the president of the lebanese Red Cross, spoke of “hundreds of injured” in a statement to the television of the lebanese LBC.
Lebanon has declared a national day of mourning on Wednesday, announced by the Prime minister, while an “urgent meeting” of the higher Council of Defence has been convened by the president.
The windows of many buildings and shops were shattered for miles round. Thick clouds of smoke, orange rise above the capital and the port area is fully covered.
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The port area has been cordoned off by the security forces, which only let the civil defense, the ballet of ambulances with sirens blaring and fire engines. Journalists have been denied access. In the vicinity of the port area, the damage and destruction and are total. Local media broadcast images of people trapped under the debris, some covered in blood.
first-aiders are deployed in mass in the area, specifies the East-to-Day, adding that the explosions caused heavy damage in several parts of the city.
“The buildings are shaking”, has tweeted an inhabitant of the city, claiming that “all the windows of (his) apartment exploded”. According to another, the blast was heard for miles. “I felt like an earthquake, and then after a huge explosion and the window panes are broken. I felt that it was stronger than the explosion at the assassination of Rafik Hariri in 2005, caused by a truck packed with explosives, said a Lebanese in the city centre of Beirut.
According to correspondents of the AFP, many of the wounded inhabitants walk the streets to hospitals. In the district of Ashrafieh, the injured rushed to the Hotel-Dieu. In front of the medical centre Clémenceau, dozens of wounded, including children, sometimes covered with blood, were waiting to be admitted.
Almost all the windows of the shops to the neighborhoods of Hamra, Badaro and Hazmieh have shattered like the windows of the cars. Cars have been abandoned in the streets, with their airbags inflated.
The port area has been cordoned off by the security forces, which only let the civil defence, the ambulance with sirens blaring and fire trucks. In the vicinity, damage to, and destruction are important. And the sirens of civil defense resound throughout the city.
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a week ago, after months of relative calm, Israel was said to have foiled a “terror attack” and opened fire on armed men, who crossed the “blue Line” separating Lebanon and Israel, before they left side of lebanon.
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The israeli Prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, attributed the infiltration of Hezbollah, a movement, an armed pro-iranian and very influential in the south of Lebanon and that israel considers to be its enemy. Accused of “playing with fire”, the Hezbollah has denied any involvement.
