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By JACK ELSOM and RYAN FAHEY and WILLIAM COLE FOR MAILONLINE<\/p>\n
One of the world’s biggest-ever peacetime explosions tore through the port in Beirut last night, killing at least 100 people, injuring thousands more and laying waste to a large part of the Lebanese capital.<\/p>\n
More than 2,750 tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, the main ingredient in fertilizer bombs, detonated when a fire apparently sparked by a welder spread to the warehouse where it had been stored for six years.<\/p>\n
Apocalyptic scenes saw a\u00a0thick red-orange mushroom cloud envelop streets surrounding the port, where buildings burned and emergency crews frantically searched the rubble for survivors.<\/p>\n
Damaged hospitals were last night creaking under the strain of more than 4,000 casualties wounded by the blast,\u00a0 which was even heard 125 miles away in Cyprus.<\/p>\n
Rescuers worked through the night into Wednesday morning in a country already reeling from its worst economic crisis in decades.<\/p>\n
Residents of Beirut awoke to a scene of devastation this morning with smoke still rising from the port, where a towering grain silo was shattered. Major downtown streets were littered with debris and damaged vehicles, and building facades were blown out.<\/p>\n
The head of Lebanon’s Red Cross said:\u00a0‘What we are witnessing is a huge catastrophe. There are victims and casualties everywhere.’<\/p>\n
In a statement released this morning the humanitarian agency said that more than 100 people had lost their lives.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister\u00a0Hassan Diab has vowed those responsible will ‘pay the price’ and plunged the country into a two-week state of emergency.<\/p>\n
The United States, the UK, France, the Gulf states and even bitter rivals Israel have offered aid to the country, which is already grappling with twin economic and coronavirus crises.<\/p>\n
Witnesses likened the explosion to a nuclear detonation, and scientists making initial calculations said the 2,750 tonnes of hazardous chemicals produced a blast equivalent to about three kilotons of TNT – roughly a fifth the force of the Little Boy atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in the Second World War.<\/p>\n
President Michel Aoun declared three days of mourning, and announced he would release 100 billion lira ($66 million) of emergency funds.<\/p>\n
General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim earlier said the ‘highly explosive material’ had been confiscated years earlier, reportedly from a ship.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump last night called the explosion a ‘terrible attack’ and said US generals had told him it appeared to have been caused by a ‘bomb of some kind’, without offering evidence.<\/p>\n
Continue reading at: <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At least 100 people are killed and thousands hurt as ‘welder’ at Beirut port sparks fire near warehouse where 2,700 TONS of highly explosive chemical ‘seized from a ship’ were being stored detonating blast the size of a small nuclear … Continue reading
\nhttps:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-8592549\/Massive-explosion-rocks-Beirut-destroying-buildings.html<\/a><\/p>\n