the blast wave. shooting out over the city shattering windows and damaging buildings several kilometers away blowing vehicles on that road that runs adjacent to the port area the firefighters now. trying to put out the blaze at that mangled warehouse which is clearly the seas of the explosion the reports of people being trapped under the rubble there and as they know what it was saying. the city's emergency services already stretched by the coronavirus pandemic will be inundated it's clear that there have been multiple injuries blast injuries after this explosion it has just gone 600 hours g.m.t. this is al-jazeera live from doha i'm adrian finnegan let's bring you up to date with that breaking news out of lebanon a huge explosion a shaken the capital beirut appears to been centered on the port area in the heart

of the city lebanon's health minister says there's been a very high number of casualties the blast wave from the explosion of course extensive damage to buildings within a large radius of the blast site kilometers away people felt lost including al-jazeera say in a honda who is on the line for us now from beirut center just remind us of way you were and what happened when that blast struck. was i don't know i don't see a problem that is trying to negotiate a way towards the port areas in it can you hear me it's adrian on. clearly chaos there is in a can you hear me it's adrian you've been on the telephone or you but i was in a cab which winery. now on the line is dropped again obviously as i was saying it is incredibly busy there the mobile phone networks inundated with people trying to

work to call loved ones to contact loved ones loved ones to make sure that the safe will try to reestablish contact with xena and get it back on the line as they go back sorry you were you were in a queue were telling us you were in a cab you. can hear me. that are clearly can't hear me she's on the move. as any good reporter is doing she's she's running to the to the scene of the the disaster right now by any means possible that 1st on foot in a cab she said as well it sounds like she's on foot again right now but. nasa has seen is is with us right now on the line tell us something about your experience of this. so this is really really very very very nice and i haven't seen i've lived the civil war and lebanon israeli invasion different as a nation but this is i think the biggest explosion that happened in lebanon up to

my you know experience and knowledge i was outside beirut. not far from beirut but overlooking it and we were shaken. and actually we've heard seconds before some kind of an air jet over the sound of a messed up. again another expert. with heard for a couple of seconds something like like a sound and then we heard the bomb and from the images that. the damages are huge and the post area i think don't force might have been you know demolished altogether and the radius of the explosion by talking to a relative. clauses were broken in the radius of 20 kilometers from the from the area so we don't understand yet we don't know yet what happened but this is going

to be huge and and and we just pray that not many casualties. will be lost. and i don't know whether you're able to see local t.v. pictures at all but but there's a scene of complete devastation at the port area itself i'm intrigued by the noise you described a few moments ago before the actual blast itself as. i'm sure we were speaking to our county council voter a few moments ago and she described hearing a single thing she said it sounded almost like a jet. absolutely i mean it sounded like a jet over a sound of inside from think you know moving wheezing in couple of seconds and then we heard the bomb and we're like like 40 can. the meters or 35 kilometers from overlooking beirut and we heard this very clear so i think we need to wait and see a geisha about this. but it doesn't look like this is this is fireworks i don't

think we pulled the beirut. storage for that amount of fireworks from looking into the images of the explosion i think this is something much bigger than that. i mean . even 202030 kilometers away from from the scene of the blast i mean but you you feel the blast wave even where you were. absolutely absolutely it's just as if it's a bomb in the in the in the nearby and then we ran away and everyone was running away to check if there was some kind of a bomb in the area i mean that's how we felt this and we we were in the mountains outside and we've referred to. so so by looking at the images and talking to friends and family in beirut this is i guess much bigger than just fireworks exploding in the post i think the whole boards area the building of the

of the where were distorted and the silos of the grain and so on i think it's totally destroyed from the images that i've seen so it could be it could be something bigger than just a fire in the port area going into some kind of a. store area of by rick i think this is what the story about. how do you think. the city's health services and emergency services are going to cope with something of this magnitude. i mean we cannot the number of casualties but definitely within a radius of the border 'd n.e.n. around there are definitely many casualties probably the workers employees people who work in the harbor of beirut will be will be affected clearly by this unfortunately so services and they loot. by the by the koran

a violent response particularly public hospital but i think i think everybody is going to. try their best to to to do the emergency response to this lebanon is not unfortunately is not known for having a very efficient emergency response aside from the lebanese that's close which is in the governmental organization but i'm sure everyone is going to go there and particularly the let's cross the army and perhaps some some deers and volunteering n.g.o.s are going to go and help and private hospitals are equipped on this but again i mean i can't tell from only the images i see but this is this is going to be stretching the health care system more than it has going through now with the coronavirus response and with actually the economic crisis let's not forget that lebanon is going through one of its grievous and deepest economic and financial

crisis and some hospitals have been struggling to get. their equipment and getting the material and whatever they need to keep going so i think this is this is again unfortunately i'm sad to look into and see the images and know what's happening this is going to strain the country for the and. perhaps it's going to accelerate this collapse as the health care system you know is going to be struggling to cope with a large number of casualties and injured people and i mean as you say. lebanon's people will because that's the nature rally right now to help those who are injured or caught up in the immediate aftermath of this explosion but what do you think will be the effect on the on the country's population given all of what they've been through over the last year both economically and with the the pandemic

that this is this is going to impact the pomerado. of course i mean we've been going through crisis after crisis for the last year the comic financial and of course the political crisis in the ability of the political elites and the political system and those in power to come up with a solution for the economic crisis and the coronavirus pandemic and all the lock down and impact on the economy so the 11. people if another as well as the refugees are going through very very hard. and then comes this kind of i think it's going to be the straw that will break the country. in the size of it of course and likely the demolition of parts of the boat if not all of it from the images but this is also related to some conflict.

conflicts related or water related i think is even going to be worse when i cannot say we need to wait and see but if some of the charted we're getting on what there were some people talking about. a strike in the port i think this is even though to get the country in and it down. we can we can only we can only speculate at the moment and that's not helpful that this is we don't yet know the course of this but just before we let you go just before we let you go nasa tell tell us once again about way. what was happening when this blast wave hit you you thought people thought where you were and he was some considerable distance away from the site of the explosion people thought this was something that was happening within the neighborhood quite local to them. absolutely exactly i mean it sounds of something like 4 seconds as if it was the sound of

a drone jet or something and then this massive explosion and we all ran to look into the nearby area to see if something happened you know i mean i thought it was a drone head or something that's something we've been seeing in this part of the war and and then all maybe some kind of an explosion in the nearby and then we started to get calls from beirut and we've seen the images and then we realize that this is something quite big and. so. i just wish people who were affected by this safety and as you mention. we're not speculating we're just describing what's happening in this incident and we hope that this is not going to be something that's going to put the country in a worse situation than at the. crease down the line for me just for

a few moments where while we've got you i just want to remind our viewers a sense of what. we're seeing on the screen at the moment. within the last hour there was has been a a massive explosion. in lebanon's capital beirut it appears to be said to have centered on the porch in the heart of the city. the waves the blast wave from this massive explosions caused extensive damage to buildings within a fair few kilometers radius of the blast site and you heard nessie is seen saying that you know 20 to 30 kilometers away it could be felt lebanon's health minister. ahmed hassan has said that the explosion has caused a very high number of injuries along with that extensive damage lebanon's the capital's. emergency services the struggling to cope. as you know

hospitals already overwhelmed by patients to use the coronavirus pandemic this is going to make things even worse how does it was in a honda is in beirut and they know where i you know i'm right at the end turns her face with port $83.00 and a heavy security presence. and i can feel. that i'm really close and i try one of the opulent what you know you think we don't know nothing all we know is that there was a map of the bullshit we're going to go in who evacuated. but how quickly did what we understand what the health. hazards of people were about that then i felt like with my own i saw people on the back row on the back of the well ambulance at the point that it was covered not. people that they

can nominate. around a lot more. kilometers where i work them on the. court when they are closer 2 went all. the ground i would know the ground you know like me or mine or not. are winding up the being part of what the smoke. still no word from the security a good thing or anything else and so on a classic actually happened was this an accident was what the people seppo or a firework seppo by some reports or was it something else as you can about. with the chaos a lot of unconfirmed reports we are trying to confirm exactly what happened but all i can tell you now is up hundreds of people have been hurt and the city is on the edge everyone fearing the worst even if you tell them this could be an

accident they're still panicking because this is a city that has seen so many explosions of the past so many of sacraments and. so many car bombings even after the civil war as it is not true and people are already off the. suffering from economic hardship people losing jobs businesses closing people finding their licenses trapped in fact people finding the local currency losing 80 percent of its value so could you imagine the state of the lebanese people and then this massive explosion that took the capital accident or not just pay off the crude people are worried people are calling family members why do we keep up there but phone lines are chap if you can in fact since i'm outside sales course a number dozens of people are gathered here. lebanese sensitivities curious people

. in other countries maybe people would run the other direction in this country a lot of people like to know what is going on the past and what are you doing you're not somebody you know we're here to see what happened so. it's chaotic adrian unfortunately at this point it's very difficult for us still. to say exactly what happened i don't want to feel badly. but whether this was an accident there has been casualties a lot of casualties people being taken out to hospitals and a lot of security presence in the spring the internal security forces closing some votes leading to the site of the closer trying to divert traffic it was rush hour when it happened people were going back to call people or this is the 1st day the country reopens after a 5 day lockdown so. people were in the street and the force of the blast was felt

kilometers and development away glass falling down for building so you can imagine how many people at the minster took just from calling lap never mind those who are executing to the close and i'm not really sure if they would have they would make it out and survive but for that law. so right now we're quite a can for this is a city on the edge and a lot of concern in the faces of people when you just look around people asking the question what happens. genest a lot about it i shouted near him and i'm here and asking where is he has the taken to hospital so people are wondering where their loved ones are. in the midst of this chaos it's very difficult really to know whether or not your loved ones i say but you can you can i can hear over here people on their phone now making calls

asking where the sun know their father or or their mother is at this point in time . please stay on the line for us in the moments that what is at the scene of the explosion which you're seeing on the screens on your screens right now if we can replay this video from from the beginning. any moment now you'll you'll see you'll see it there's been speculation that it was that the blast happened at a fireworks factory a fire truck a storage area. looking at these pictures i'm i'm no expert but if you look at that plume of smoke there was an initial explosion and what looks like to me anyway my my. and it's our eyes to be explosions firework explosions within that cloud of smoke and then several seconds later. you get this. massive massive explosion. as we said we we still have no whether

this. is an industrial accident. or something more deliberate it's too early to tell but this is the result of that explosion as the sun sets over the lebanese capital beirut a scene of complete devastation at the port area and that blast the shockwave from the blast. went to 3 kilometers or more it every direction damaging buildings and homes blowing out windows that have been many many glass injuries we were talking to a reporter on child burra a little earlier who was clearly in a state of shock when she talked to us she was at home watching t.v. at all of the windows blew out in her home while she was talking to us she had an ankle injury which was which was bleeding. and she was looking for for a 1st aid that was

a red cross red crescent 1st aid person nearby and so we're hoping that that she got the treatment that the chief needs this isn't child's house that's what happened now that was several kilometers away from where the explosion happened that was where a shell was watching t.v. many many homes across beirut looked like back tonight even though they were kilometers away from the port area in the city. al jazeera zana holder is live for us on the line she is after the polls which is where that explosion happened as you said saying earlier emergency workers are still there trying to extinguish the flames and searching for people who who may be under the rubble of mangled rubble there of those buildings that have been that have been devastated by that explosion. yes adrian we are not able to enter the ports we are.

right outside the port there's a security course at the lebanese army a very heavy presence of the army at the eternal security forces there opening the road test fire talks continue to arrive ambulances that's it it's arrived at the city that don't want to see you know. what the timing is really what exactly happened at least from where i found it. will tell you though that it was a fuel that pole a fire work to tell with some people that say that could be weapons it's very hard to say at this point in time what exactly happened. first pay off as you can imagine people trying to call their loved one time to find out whether or not they were hurt and the last of the closed down this is you know well it's a kilometer isn't kilometer so they look cool or it's just because you might be up there with horses really at the heart of the lebanese capital just 2 kilometers

from downtown they were then told they will where the parliament is where the government is if you remember a few months ago it but the epicenter of a protest where people used to gather and protest and call for your leadership so and in that area there are a lot of salt. a lot of people were the area where this happened because it happened during rush hour people were in the streets it was the 1st say the country reopened after 53. lockdowns at people were. trying to finish whatever they needed to do because the country's going to go into lockdown to get on thursday for another 5 day so report crowded and. when it happened i was in the area with the. use of officers from beirut or through the american university hospital with the fairies. by going to

separate and glass from the 7th and 8th floor where it was falling down on the ground so it was very very powerful very massive. we were all grown chris brown the security team. so concerned that there could be if you can still hear the sound of the sirens ambulances still alive still trying to exactly where. those inside the port again and we heard from the health minister who just said a short while ago that 100. people have been injured in this massive blast and i can tell you for sure not all of the injuries not all of the casualties will keep us looking at the scale of the damage outside support and kilometer from the support people but up it hurts kilometers away glass everywhere. on. hospitals taking the ambulances taking the wanted to the

hospitals so far what exactly happened was this an accident was a fairly close there was something in that hole that caused this explosion and we're still waiting to hear from the internal security of course a. government official still the word will the word on exactly what happened that took the lebanese capital. i was there is a wonder is reporting live for us at the size of that explosion at the poor city in beirut. we'll we'll let you go and gather some some facts for a moment i just want to show you once again those pictures if i can all of. our as house. i got a 2nd we're just going to call them up for you actual vora as a reporter who spoke to us about an hour ago now just under an hour ago she was

watching t.v. in that room several kilometers away from the porch where that explosion happened this is what happened. at here is what she had to say when i spoke to her a short time ago. we were just watching a show on the next break taking a break from work and i are hard at jeff hovering in the sky and because it's been happening for some time i open the window glass door and looked outside and the entire building shook and i was blown by i'm bleeding on my neck i think because i think it's claws on my neck and my ankles and i would have been seriously injured but a lot of people around me on the street where i live in just call to maybe a christian dominated area a lot of people are bleeding there's absolute chaos here people cannot 7 understand how to react to this situation this country's already being grappling with so much

good in the day i was filing a story on how the price of bread was doubled but how are these people going to deal with the situation now what do you find a buyer is ok i haven't yet met me but i haven't yet. i don't know if there are any casualties yet or not because i'm right on the my house but my entire house was blown apart there's nothing that i could actually pick up from there other than my phone luckily i found my phone and i thought my father bought * one does with me being on the streets right now also on the job trying to phone trying to talk to people and understand what happened all the journalists not collecting at the st paul outside the red cross a lot of people trying to go in i have a good managed to get to the building 6 because i don't know whether it's been bones or not but a lot of the building still has been called just people around me believing everywhere complete chaos i mean you know one doesn't want to sort of talk about who's done this yet but this should be hovering up all hovering above the skies over the lot over the last 2 months you know so complete kills many more are

dissipating there but it's just such a heartbreaking moment. the voice of reports on child bora speaking to us an hour or so ago clearly in shock that what had happened couldn't believe that. that. just sitting there watching t.v. that that the windows would cave in the force of the last and she was several kilometers away from it at the time. just to remind you if you've if you've just joined us. breaking news out of lebanon a huge explosion this shaken the capital beirut appears to pin centered on the porch of the heart of the city and the blast wave off the explosions caused extensive damage to buildings within a large radius of the blast sites and. a number of an extensive number of injuries mostly lost and gloss injuries. al-jazeera say the

horror is is somewhere near where you are looking at the moment at the entrance that the port and those mangled warehouses that we're seeing where firefighters are trying to extinguish. blazes. zana. you face something of a trek across the city a city of absolute chaos when you heard this blast felt this blast and then try to make your way to the pools. heard i heard a crowd. around it might be legal. but i. later it was like. pushed it to the ground and glass flying everywhere and then i so i saw smoke in the distance not very far i thought it was downtown beirut for my vantage point i thought that was downtown beirut chaos in the streets i was close to

a hospital they were evacuating patients from the hospital as well because the force of the blast like you said can you can win so glass everywhere and people were so concerned that it the explosion is going to be followed by another explosion this is a country that has seen many many explode her political attacks that raised her so immediately at the back of every one is that here we go again and this is the official reaction that our search for people had to hold has a hold it started again but it was so difficult to mold because as you can about people started to comment get into their cars some cars were damaged on the roads some roads were lost and then you saw the security forces starting to close quote leading to pave of course so this is what's kind of difficult to

reach here are now standing outside the port i can still see the smoke a few 100 meters from where i'm standing but the army is not allowing us in ambulances the civil defense fire trucks they sent you to arrive at the scene they answer. i see some of them come back out with people but others have not come out yet a few people are trapped under the rubble it's very hard for me to say what happened because we can speculate i mean you ask anybody near what happened everybody was sleeping with the crew or. you can hear you can hear more after this is arriving the health minister is saying that. people. are. not just for this explosion was felt miles away demographers away glass everywhere i saw a woman on the back of a motorcycle her face was covered in blood and they were rushing her to the

hospital so this whether it's an accident or whether it was some sort of a bomb and it was called. worth the waiting for the internal security forces or any of the. exactly what happened. so far no statement from the authorities apart from the health minister and. hundreds have been injured you can hear more and more ambulance so definitely more people who are either trapped in. these doesn't have got the right to. get in here. let you let you go and. give us news for a moment. let's talk to to sami neda who is. in his car

as we speak at the moment where are you right now where were you when when this blast happened. my. son but you. all is that windows. that own. all the doors. was i mean this is something. i have written. i was i was i was. tommy we appear to have lost yes no we've lost we've lost a signal so i mean. many thanks indeed i mean it will try to get something back again so that he can recount his experience for us once again. you're looking at. downtown beirut at sunset dusk

looking out over the port area and within the last 90 minutes there has been a massive explosion here it is. first a plume of smoke something's gone terribly wrong. looks appears to be in that in the middle of that plume of smoke that file. explosions maybe fireworks we don't know there are reports that maybe this was a fireworks storage area. and then several seconds later after this. you get this mushroom cloud. that just. mushrooms out wide over the city look at that. glass windows buildings damaged.