that it's hard to just have a critical mass of people thinking one thing in lebanon and that's when the biggest problem that lebanon that there is really kind of teamwork or team spirit to actually save this country everybody's going in different directions and again this country doesn't make a lot of sense as a country to begin with everybody knows that you have many people together have very different world views you know half of the country looks toward iran and china and half the country looks toward france the united states and saudi arabia and you know these international powers have played up that they will play this to their advantage always they will support opposing sides lebanon is the world's chessboard and this is where the cold war has happened so you know that haitians are not always made in lebanon that the term lebanon faith many are but there you know it's it's it's very hard to untangle the division in this country and killed all of them in their violence will do that because we've had so many violent events this country we've had so many wars and bombings. and that hasn't really set the country

on a better path so i think right now it's going to be about you know counting the losses and i think we haven't scratched the surface yet have a good start to many thanks have. found out of beirut reports it is 1800 hours g.m.t. hello i'm adrian finighan this is al-jazeera if you've just joined us there's been a huge explosion and lebanon's capital beirut at least 10 people have been killed lebanese security officials say the blast was triggered by explosive material that was stored in a warehouse in the force area which is at the heart of the sense here lebanon's president has called an emergency meeting of the prime minister has called a national day of mourning on what the state the head of the lebanese red cross says that hundreds of injured people have been taken to hospital but that many people are still trapped in the homes the cause of the blast is still on clear at the moment israel however has issued

a statement denying any involvement. omar shelby is a criminal justice analyst he joins us now on the line from beirut ahmad good to have you with us. take us through your experience of what happened today where were you when this happened. because the connection is not very good but what i can tell you is that this was one of the i think the largest explosion i mean i lived through the whole war and we never had an explosion that large you know the explosion that took place at the airport at the seaport i'm sorry and it's a warehouse of highly explosive material it's still not clear what this material is about one in there are some early reports that this is a trick and fertilizer now what has caused the explosion there was obviously a fire and then later on at lead to an explosion the investigations on the way the lebanese are to be doing the investigation with some judicial authorities the

judicial part is over to the investigation i don't think we will have any indications that are accurate until tomorrow however the explosion created a lot of destruction all over the city we have many many wounded still being moved to the hospital right now and apparently there are allegations that the court that there are some victims under the rubble so there are rescue operations on the way to get more people from under that are now the country has been going through a lot of problems but this comes at a time when the country is under. is under very very difficult economic situation the local currency has been has lost its value 10 times its value. there is a government where things are not going very well with the government yesterday there was that i think michel the foreign minister and on top of that you have the corona virus outbreak at the contamination that has been increasing in the past 3.

so adding to these 2 problems the economic and financial. crisis and the corona. explosion and there's talk about chemical agent. take acid it's not sure but there is that there was. any change in the city in parts of the city and the cloud was a produced by this huge explosion is colored reddish orange and therefore it is a very unusual color that indicates probably that there is a chemical. 3 agent we don't know how dangerous this is but the people experts are advising people to stay home if this turns out to be an industrial accident accident source who takes responsibility how do people who are

victims. been injured if they have relatives who've been killed how do they get justice. me yes this is this is the big question and i think it's still very much early for anyone to answer it however we can tell you and i can tell the viewers that this country has been suffering with the whole process of whole thing people in positions of responsibility accountable. system of accountability that is supposed to be part of the democratic system and also any government is not functioning. you know there are 5 so many reports of corruption in government and people in positions of power and in positions in the government have not been held accountable although in many cases there was a lot of evidence that shows that they have been involved in corruption you know their biggest fear is that. something that has to do with politics because also.

we are expecting 'd at the judgment of from the special tribunal for lebanon on friday so it would be you know everybody i mean it would be expected that people will make a correlation between those 2 events now it's not sure scientifically and judicially there's nothing to indicate any correlation or there are no signs that indicate that the criminal act has been done on purpose and that it's related to the judgment that it's supposed to come out on friday. however we don't know yet i mean that we're still very much early on in the investigation so and i as the investigation has to remain confidential until it's completed so we have to wait a few hours more to know more. 5 comes out of this investigation and if this was an accidental or what attack we cannot have a confirmation to 5 confirm any of these 2 possible. once people

got over the shock the emotional trauma of what they've lived through today. i'm assuming that they will they will become angry how do you think that they will they will vent that anger anger is this is this a dangerous moment for the country. oh magic can you hear me now i'm afraid we we seem to have lost the line to. let's. talk about. i have a 2nd well we're going to go back to the bus again who's a journalist the founder of the beirut report he's been with us over the last half an hour or so are you a presumably listening to to what omar was saying that you want to add anything to

that. well i think that you know this country is not prepared for a disaster and you know it's hanging by a thread and so you know we've always lived in fear of a major catastrophe a natural disaster an earthquake you know this country has no emergency readiness and no response there are barely enough police to control the highway which are and extremely dangerous so anything any place where you where you find a government try to put in regulations and safety for citizens and any country you live in we don't have any of that here so there's no highway patrol there's no fire inspections of buildings you know there are many buildings and beirut that's a little bit urals i interviewed firefighters for a story once and they didn't have fire fighting suits to go into fire so so you know that there and the infrastructure the country is so bad some of the roads in lebanon are this are made for donkey carts literally i mean they've been the same roads for hundreds of years probably so you know that everything is very tight

tight squeezes tightly fitted warehouses you know of things that are very flammable you know gas station there are that sort of and we had a gas station blow up in lebanon a few years 'd ago because of the gas tank so there's no regulation on how. substances are controlled and this country and then you have those who claim that they were weapons. that were stored there but again we have no ability to know that people are just jumping to conclusions and they're so anxious and they're ready to you know a lynch anything any any any cause or person that they hold response for without even having evidence and so people are on edge in this country you know just driving around they could were just driving so crazily a mess before all this happened so you know you know this is just one example of how a country that doesn't have any kind of urgency preparation will really suffer very badly in any other non-sequential you know we expected earthquakes in this country

for a long. time we're on the fault zone we have a number of dangerous government projects that are building on fault zones and so this is kind of a rehearsal for how bad is it but just that really reiterate it was like a natural disaster because it didn't just affect the area or the few blocks around the explosion site i have friends that live 10 or 15 minutes away who showed me their entire house and their room were blown out and i just wonder how people are going to sleep tonight without windows. and so exactly i'm sorry to interrupt you we were nice we talked earlier we this is kind of such a a terrible time for lebanon economically and politically we were talking about the fact that the country is going to need some help after this because i mean the port as you were saying is where or all materials for the food the people need to eat are imports is where is that help going to come from.

that's another great question you know i love it on because it's in this cold war between iran and the u.s. and saudi arabia and nobody wants to help lebanon unless lebanon follows the politics that they want and the problem is that lebanon is not aligned it cannot be just you know marshaled into one position or another you know the u.s. has demanded and put pressure on lebanon economically but sanctions as you know restricted flights for decades because of hezbollah because they feel that it's you know a terrorist group and supporting terrorist countries so they have pressure on us and that way the other other countries have put pressure on us to turn away from the u.s. but as a small country it's very hard to take positions like that because you're really at the whim of other countries and other countries have refused to help lebanon unless there is some kind of political reform political reform again it doesn't every kind of help has strings attached you know foreign aid is not charity and countries have

been trying to aim lebanon for a decade but they've done so in a certain way that promotes their own interest in the country ok so the problem with aid that it always that strains that patched up in impoverished the country more because of the high debt rates interest rate on debt will be extremely high borrowing costs a lot going on and there are lot of debate about how that came to be because it's an unstable country so you know lebanon and someone doesn't know where to turn to because everybody wants a certain agenda in the country and no one wants to give any prefer to have a woman question. if you look at the from where i'm sitting in it i'm not saying in front of a computer here and i'm looking at all the the wire services and the. house or off of the blast there's a there's a statement. comes in the israeli government israel have nothing to do with beirut last quoting israeli government official what what are we to make of that remarkable. denial and so very quickly after that happened. yeah it

tells you a lot doesn't it i mean it why would you immediately say you're not really do with a crime that you were nowhere near the crime scene so so so what you say you can tell actually because we're blaming israel because israel has been ball and those kind of bombing so many times and love are not that it almost knows that we will blame it so the fact that that even happening tells you a deeper story about the relation between lebanon and israel which has been a very violent one i mean we've been on the receiving end of that most entirely the number of casualties and whatnot so they you know look it won't believe it's real people do not believe this because they've lied so many times in lebanon and they've broken so many cease fires and people people here feel that they are you know a kind of but a very violent government that's willing to make any kind of light to get its way so it might have been israel might not have they might have had nothing to do with this but even if they didn't have to do with it that's how complicated lebanon is

is that once one of bents violent event happens it can be read in so many ways they could still have a but other. speaking from from lebanon if you just joined us this is sara spent a huge explosion in lebanon's capital beirut at least 10 people are known to have been killed that that death toll though is going to increase in the coming hours and days lebanese security officials say that that. was triggered by an explosive material that was stored in a warehouse in the port area which is of the hearts of the city the president has called an emergency meeting the prime minister has called a national day of mourning for wednesday the head of the lebanese red cross says that hundreds of people have been taken to hospital. with blast injuries. many are still trapped in their homes the initial blast wave. court.

travel. away from the actual size of the blast and homes buildings were damaged windows were blown out. people suffered cuts bruises injuries the cause of the stage unclear although as we were saying just a few moments ago israel was quick to issue a statement denying any involvement al-jazeera saying a honda is life outside the poor in beirut where that explosion happened and you've been with the sing you say this is that explosion some pretty chaotic scenes there. yes a dream chaotic scenes outside beirut port as the ambulances arrived to evacuated the wounded but we have since moved to one of the hospitals in the center of beirut the american university hospital where most of the injured have been taken there

are also requests on social media for people to donate blood because really dozens and dozens of people were injured in this massive massive blast that took the lebanese capital when you mentioned explosive material at one of the warehouses that is what the head of one of the 11 on security agencies general major general about suppressing him announced about approximately an hour ago and now we are hearing from lebanon's interior minister mohammad for me what he is saying is that the highly explosive ammonium nitrate was stored in the ports and he says that the lebanese people should ask customs about why it was there so officials trying to really distance themselves on what this highly explosive material was doing at the beirut port that caused this massive blast that has taken the law. it's of at least 10 people that is what we understand from lebanese

security sources but dozens and dozens of people have been injured some hospitals have started to turn away patients the health care system in lebanon is under a lot of pressure not just because of an economic crisis but because of an upsurge in the number of coronavirus cases this is a government which is cash strapped this is a state which is close to bankruptcy and this is a state that owns billions of dollars to lebanon's private hospitals one of those private hospitals as this one a h. but what we understand is that they are receiving the injured and treating those who are injured but there are calls now for people to donate blood all types of blood in order to help those who were hurt many of them. in their injuries as a result of falling falling glass and as you can see family members outside the

hospital waiting for news about their loved ones there was panic when just moments after that massive explosion i was not very far from a u. h. this hospital when it happened and we are a few kilometers from beirut port and i felt the the scale and the magnitude of of this blast which which shook the ground pushed us to the to the ground and caused a lot of panic among residents who had no idea what had just happened and the smoke the color of the smoke what i saw was orange so maybe it makes i'm not an expert but now that the lebanese interior minister saying that this highly explosive ammonium nitrate was stored at the beirut port so many many questions are now going to be answered what was this material doing at a beirut port why. it was it's there who put it there and so

and but right now the concern of many lebanese as you can see is the condition of their loved ones who are now inside the emergency at the emergency room this is a city on edge a country on edge people on their nerves who are really concerned and worried about what tomorrow will bring their livelihoods have been shattered by this explosion many many shops have been damaged goods on the floor for so many people this is all that they had left in a country where there is a deep economic recession in a country where businesses have been closing people have been losing their jobs and the health care system that is collapsing this is one of the biggest hospitals in levanon and a few weeks ago they laid off 850 nurses and administrators because they could not pay their salaries because the government owes private hospitals billions of

dollars and that is why some hospitals have started to turn away patients because they don't have the supplies needed to help them so now all. the priority now is for to to help 8 and trade to those who were injured in this blast and i can tell you the past but this been 3 hours now since the explosion i haven't seen and i've seen ambulances come and go nonstop to the explosion site. and and taking the injured to the hospitals across across the capital all right set up many things such as there is a to hold a reporting live there from beirut let's speak to the head of khalifa who. was formerly lebanon's health minister he joins us now on blind. beirut good to have

you with us so we saw their anxious relatives waiting outside the hospital for news of. that dearest the nearest who've been injured in this blast hundreds of people injured as day and all of this is happening in the midst of a pandemic can the city's health services cope. oh ho. good evening i can leverage health services cope. let me be listening actually myself and my family literally. i'm living next door in a very city and still in the complex sort of sadness and there was looting just i left because of the high position we were all sleeping hundreds of casualties along with my team because still i'm operating at a critical success. i think it is it is just that i never feel something like that except when i was today and during the rough time really but he said it was people

there were rushing and hundreds no place to accommodate it and what team is it one of the biggest seemed like $100.00 positions and now they're actually we could absorb the shock we managed to do in several waves and really we have mortality is we managed to save a lot of people. but i think beyond any imagination injuries all over certain people to have 7 or 8 injuries in different places you can see in the clear to. you can see clearly what is. taught we have to mix with everybody in the year of conflict where you cannot move protection because people you are between to get covered or to save somebody else like just i was sitting at my home i told my family shouted take tears there's an earthquake and immediately in my cover to clear everything collapsed. naturally i skipped i left family and jumped to the

hospital to save lives we are in a very bad situation economically medical supplies sort of everything we managed to cope but the investigation is beyond any description and what about the nature of the injuries you are seeing today. people still sitting at home there are times when we have pressure injuries there were a couple of cars. their heads maybe they hit we'll hear what they hit somewhere people from. a injuries because you can see their faces are swollen as a direct injury due to blast injuries fragments people you know beirut is a very crowded city if you are passing on a street and immediately want to offer glasses collapses then you want to scream from one to see if. there are different sort of. injuries. we meet in the last 30 plus have injuries acceleration injuries cilicia injuries what

we describe in medical care yes it is very it is wasn't unexpected everybody. thought then it and quick and then after like 20 seconds we had the major explosion and if anybody he felt that this was a special incident at his home for example i have some people when they come with me from the country being get told me oh we're skeptics close in i told them what the explosion of the victims 1. told me it's next to comes clears and imagine it is in the report and my house is 500. 1 50 but he was under the impression that the explosion went on in his own home. given the stress that the health care system is on the right now in lebanon can can it cope with this will it be overwhelmed with the number of the sheer number of injuries. that the people who came in to receive

. a that in certain buildings if some people there were living alone to. check up on them i'm. going to have to tweet yes. what about. the best people to. see that came to life that. yes well coping with. such injuries you know we've been through a lot we have expected is but definitely resources. i think the financial situation the status of. depression among the people jim moret is very placid but this boat is very low people. 1 living on. the i don't know i don't know what's happening country like. living on a small country and they don't. as if you are witnessing what we call

a slow death before this explosion when people there were going from bad to worse everyone we've spoken to today said said i've never felt anything like this and i've experienced a lot of explosions in my life as everyone is everyone in beirut has. this full of traumatized a lot of people what did i mean it would have it would have brought back a lot of. a lot of bad memories for a lot of people there do you think. we'll be dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder after after knowing that a simple if if you. if you have your own try on just like i said. that now i'm talking to you if it wasn't a matter of seconds i could have been torn apart if you see when i came from the university i'd be open a thing cause i have a favorite place to sit usually they bring me some water to hide it and so on then

my wife called me no today you have to come since we married 20 years ago now that she said i took up and then i thought take care the building is going to collapse that generously quick and in 2 seconds 'd. 200 piece of a glass full of pulp where i was to think it hit me tangentially my self. if you call me with a back up a 2nd night my phone couldn't answer you because i want to get. if you ask me about similar situation i'm telling you about myself it was me why i would let you go i invested throughout my life i'm a professor of steadily and with a liver transplant it's in the middle east because a cousin immediately i could have died and i don't want to hear an excuse was always my to respect my friend the minister of interior. but syrian was imported was. deposited in the next to the. clothes of the

gents we know what is nitrate being to cover it is this is not the right place to store it and this is shouldn't be proud somebody should be ashamed of saying this to the public that we are because i think whatever it is even for manufacturing even for farming this is an immaterial cannot be deposited in the most the crowded area in the middle east i don't know what it is i'm not saying i'm not talking politics i'm not blaming everybody and anybody wants to blame me but as simple as that it's really good to talk to so many thanks dave i'm sure i'm sure you know should seriously say if somebody is if you would it's better to shut down doesn't talk and take any doubt you know. thank you for being with us. let's go back to our designers and hall who set one of the roots hospitals.

in lebanon of course not only dealing with an economic crisis. and the events of today and that this is happening in the middle of a pandemic of course. yes a rise in coronavirus case this really has strained the health care system in the country where outside one of the main hospitals in beirut the american university hospital many injured have been taken here they're inside the emergency ward their families are desperately awaiting news about their conditions what we understand is that there are a number of people who are in critical condition a lot of people were injured by this explosion the health minister saying in their hundreds it wasn't just people who were close to the site of the explosion at beirut portent were either killed or injured i am must say that lebanese security sources say at least 10 have so far been killed but people kilometers and kilometers away were hurt by shattered glass some were getting some reports that

people were on their balconies on the balcony collapse there's glass across across the city damage across the city and the destruction that people really have never seen before and i'm just as a country that is not immune to political violence and assassinations and bombings that they've seen it happen over the years this is also a country that witnessed a 15 year civil war that ended in 1990 but the sheer force of this explosion this massive blast was felt kilometers and kilometers away it pushed people to the ground so there was a lot of panic so we are also getting reports. ports that the red cross is appealing for blood donations are asking whoever is able to come to hospitals to donate blood because they're in desperate need of blood to a lot of the cases where people are suffering from cuts from from from shattered

glass and we talked about a health care system that is close to collapse this is a private hospital and the lebanese government owes this hospital billions of dollars and a private hospitals have been threatened with closure in recent weeks because they do not have enough money to be able to treat everybody and a lot of people who have lost their jobs over the years have lost their their insurance as well. as you can see how tense the situation is it's not clear. how. far. it seems this man wants to enter the emergency ward it's not clear what problem he is facing but you can imagine how how people are tense how people are on the edge a lot of them don't know the well being of their family members and

a lot of them also injured so it i i have covered many many explosions in this country nothing nothing like this the destruction you just drive through the streets of beirut central beirut as well as here in the hammer a district shattered glass on the floor damaged vehicles stores the stores of the blown the facade of the stores blown apart it's it's it's very chaotic adrian and all these people. waiting for news of their loved ones trying to imagine how tense the situation is yeah agenda before you move to the hospital. you were for a couple of hours at the site of the explosion at the pools just just remind us of what you saw. was pretty chaotic that was. yes adrian 1st of all it was kind of difficult to reach the site of the explosion

as some roads closed the panic in the streets. and so once we got there we were there for approximately 2 hours and i can tell you that ambulances kept arriving nonstop entering the beirut ports and coming out a few minutes later with some with a casualty. either injured or or dead in the back of the ambulance and this went on for 2 hours fire trucks as well to put out the flames the lebanese . the head of one of lebanon's security agency is a major general about him inspected the site of the explosion and he told reporters that it appears it appears that the blast was caused by highly explosive material that was stored at the warehouse and it was stored in this warehouse for years and it was confiscated material something that the interior minister minutes later.

confirmed and reiterated that this was ammonium nitrate and and he was asking questions what was it doing in the warehouse at beirut ports and this is definitely going to be a question that many lebanese are going to ask in the hours and days ahead because this would point to negligence on the part of the of lebanese authorities who are already under a lot of criticism for running the economy into the ground for failing to resolve lebannon where is the economic crisis in decades for failing to carry out reforms to fix corruption in the state in order for lebanon to be eligible. for an i.m.f. international monetary fund bailout plan 11 on is in need of billions of dollars the status close to bankruptcy you can see ambulances continue to arrive what we understand some other hospitals are facing

a lot of are under strain some of the victim some of the casualties are being treated in a parking lot south side so this really just shows you how much how many crises this country is dealing with economic crisis financial crisis people savings locked in banks informal capital controls in place a lebanese lira a local currency that has devalued people salaries were really worth nothing people's life savings also worth nothing there is a scarcity and hard currency which makes it very very difficult to to import that this is a country that is import dependent it imports 80 percent of its needs now they are evacuating. a casualty from. from an ambulance as you can see a tree and it's a no it's a very very very difficult situation. for lebanese who are watching these

scenes they've seen scenes like this this may have been an act accident they will definitely blame the authorities for negligence but they have seen scenes like this over the years as a result of bombings and. assassination attempts and you can hear people screaming in the background people are are on the edge are on the edge and. some militia mohnish i'm sorry it is quite chaotic here we have to just move out of the way you. often often are off. so enjoy and you can see there are still. still bringing in powerful teas to the hospital many many people have been injured so as you can see more medical staff arriving already there is a there is a shortage of medical staff and in fact tomorrow the association of nurses

was planning a strike. and a sit in to highlight the conditions that they're working in because they get little pay and because they don't have enough staff this hospital alone fired 850 nurses and administrators in the past few weeks so a strike was called for it's being called for tomorrow by nurses. just shows you how the health care system it is collapsing in this country so this is going to be it's going to be a very very difficult night for the doctors and nurses who work here and the different private and public hospitals across across the country might say to many thanks do you know what a reporting live from the american university of beirut france says that it's ready to help lebanon in any way that lebanese authorities deem necessary that's the

french foreign minister. tweeting a statement that also tweeting iran's foreign minister zarif saying that iran stands ready to help lebanon in any way necessary following the blast in beirut well the u.n. says that it has no information yet on the cause of the explosion a spokesman said that there are no reports of injuries among u.n. staff in beirut. we have no indication from our colleagues in lebanon that there's been any harm to u.n. personnel or facilities and certainly i hope that they're all ok and i book that the people of lebanon are ok these are very worrying signs of explosions we do not have. information about what has happened precisely what has caused this whether it's an accidental or manmade on and so we will need that information to respond once we get that we'll probably try to express something further but at this stage

our thoughts are with the people of lebanon and we hope that whatever has happened that the damage is limited and that the safety of the lebanese people. will be interested i was told about how this blast in beirut impacted upon homes that were several kilometers away from the the site of the explosion earlier we spoke with a reporter vora who is in beirut on lives and by ruse. this is from the room. she was watching t.v. at the time see how powerful the blast was or was badly damaged by the impact of the explosion i'm sure herself suffered minor injuries and when we spoke to her several hours ago she was clearly in shock his how she described what happened to

her. 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 side of the thing shook and i was blown by it 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 they just go to maybe a christian dominated area a lot of people are bleeding there's absolute chaos here people cannot 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 thought * one does with me here 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 same fall outside the red cross a lot of people trying to go in i have a good managed to get to the building 6 red cross i don't know whether it's been bones or not just people around me believing everywhere complete chaos i being 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 local the last 2 months you know so complete kill many were anticipating this but it's just such a heartbreaking moment. let's speak once again to be bata who's a journalists on the found report he joins us now from little them suburbs of beirut and tell us good to have you with us again abby just

a few minutes ago to whether you heard me tweet from france's foreign minister saying that front stands ready to help in any way that it can this goes back to where the help that lebanon needs is going to come from and also that tweet from from iran's foreign minister zarif also saying that iran stands ready to help lebanon what are we to make of all this. i mean we really hope so you know we can use all the help we can get as i said yesterday and months ago this country has been suffering but you know a lot of promises and a lot of pledges but most of the time they don't actually pan out so 'd hopefully there will be money the french minister was in beirut few weeks ago and he gave money a lot of money was given to french schools and love and on so again they were very not really helpful for the government of the government actually complain that france what could have settlers already email so there's a lot of political posturing hopefully this tragedy will not be seen as

a political one like the government's economic collapse and people will just get money just to help but again it's hard to imagine money without strings attached in a country like lebanon where that's precisely the reason why the country is in so much as it was borrowed so much money. and actually and it's been propped up by so many foreign powers all these years the country could have collapsed probably years and years ago but constant being propped up by different powers so there's a skepticism i think when it comes to foreign aid to lebanon but at this time hopefully will be true doesn't humanitarian crisis like an earthquake or something and people just give money without asking questions always the money should go to the people who need it the hospitals in lebanon really the money the government owes the hospital millions of dollars as your doctor was mentioning it's just incredible how hospitals continue to operate at a loss and many cases in lebanon people you know the price of health care is also

quite expensive so you know it's very it's a very it's a very collapsing health care system as they not mention and that's there's a collapsing power grid in lebanon there's a collapsing you know water system in the i'm there's a collapsing garbage collection the waste management system in lebanon there's garbage piles all over the streets before this explosion happened so there's so many things that are kind of. colliding and now we're hearing that there is toxic air as well due to this explosion which could have been that the gas that we've been hearing about there was a red color that was there were fireworks that looked like within the explosion as well so we don't know what kind of oxy elements and lebanon has a very high air pollution level because of the fact that there's no government like a city so that every is running generators and their homes in lebanon which fills the air would be zal so we were already inhaling fumes and this country and swimming and sewage in this country because the sewage of the work all of these european countries have pledged at one time or the help 11 on these solutions are

very short term these are bandied about you know more band-aids that need a serious really reckoning and i think that this is a reckoning for the system if you know there was this was an accident you know there's so many other accidents that are waiting to happen people also are depressed and anxious there are number of suicides in lebanon due to the economic situation this could drive some people over the edge you know we have to be careful with the violence. we heard from about saber him general security chief earlier saying that this explosion was quote on his stomach only days there's going to be an official investigation but the theory is of the moment that this explosive was caused by explosive material stored in a warehouse santa ana was reporting that it's thought to be this this material was ammonium nitrate and that this material had been at this warehouse in the port for quite some time whose responsibility is that one was the stuff of so much of it

that they could do the kind of damage that we've seen today what was it doing at the port in bay rooms. oh well someone suggested it could be fertilizer it could have other chemical industries that use that kind of thing but you know that safety precautions are notoriously not applied in beirut and we've seen other fires we've seen factories catch on fire in the past maybe they were very explosive materials in massive fires in lebanon and recent years so it's not surprising you know who was responsible the the adventurous point in different directions there's the ministry of transport there's the port authority there's news out of the of beirut there's a ministry of interior the police there's all kinds of. different agencies that might have some kind of a safety claim there but you know one thing that's very interesting is that lebanon is also one of the most densely populated countries in the world as some are on the

top 10 list of most populated countries so you know there is a lack of space to put things in lebanon as well and this is related to the garbage crisis there's no space for landfills so the land those are put in the sea there could be no space for hazardous materials no budget to store them in a bigger facility i mean there really so many layers in this onion of responsibility when it comes to lebanon it's really hard i think to we want to point a finger we the people want to know red meat they want they want revenge but it's often a very complicated mix authorities that are overlapping that lead to these situations of just kind of winging it you know i can just see them winging it and putting things in a warehouse i think people will get every day and this country on the roads you know you almost get killed every time you drive on the roads in lebanon because the police aren't really there to take care of the traffic management so there really so many dangers for the lebanese that it's been on a daily basis and you know people people felt that they felt that blast at home but

this blast was in their home i thought the building collapsed behind me many friends called me as a bomb next to my house it's really. hard to kind of. describe to you the force field the wave the shock wave that just that is a kind of fell over all of us and you know it's it's saying a lot for people living in lebanon on the worst explosion that ever seen for people living in beirut it says a lot is that this is the most dangerous thing that they that they felt so you know they've been there been you know hundreds and thousands of bombs dropped on beirut over the years so that this actually stands out it's quite amazing we were waiting for a statement from. from an assassin db and we'll take that live here and i was there as and when that happens the world health organization is expressing its concern over the implications of the disaster coming as it does in the midst of

a pandemic the lebanese red cross says that more than 2200 people were injured a babe in today's blast and the numbers a likely to rise as we saw. from inside a hot a the the american university of beirut casualties still arriving at hospital 34 hours after the explosion and what sort of strain at the moment. is lebanon's health system on the moment. you know we have a very limited number of i.c.u. beds in lebanon something and then the and the hundreds and the cases of coke would have have gotten to a point where many many of them are taking up those beds and there aren't many beds left and so you know it's like you're going through a crisis you're going through a kind of a pearl harbor and then you get hit again. on top of that so it's you know

it's a double triple quadruple whammy on the number of things that are going through into these hospitals have been crying out for help on television for weeks and months now saying that they don't have the p.p. they don't have the protective gear to treat coronavirus patients they can't you know the because the currency has devaluate it so much the cost of care it's still expensive for lebanese citizens but it has no value and when you can we want a hospital you to buy imported goods we don't make the people you don't make all those products here so you're still having to buy goods with very little revenue coming in to pay for them so this country is constantly being in that not just the government the hospitals the schools are in debt people can't pay their tuition there's so many areas where money is owed and owed owed so many times over this country i mean it's really a miracle that you know every day people survive in this country and then you hit

it with this so you know the hospital that you're talking about the american of mercy hospital a you the medical center is is is has just laid off like 800 employees and they brought in the military because they were afraid people would actually fight. their bosses and destroy the building of the hospital and so you have revolts in the hospitals of before all of this happened and you have an overloading of cases the government unable to control it for a virus issue and that although it has not has actually fared ok but we're having a spike now because people are really social distancing and that kind of thing but maybe this will shock people a bit more into doing that knowing that there's really not much much not much space left in a hospital if you need one right now. have a pretty talk to many thanks indeed for the moment we may well be back with you within the last few moments lebanon's health but. has said that more than 30 people were killed in today's explosion and over $3000.00 inches of that death toll

though is likely darius of the coming hours day some more than 30 people killed in the explosion in beirut over 3000 injured let's talk to a college hama who was a lebanese army general and is now the managing director of regional forum for consultancy studies he's on the line from beirut good to have you with us where were you when this explosion happened today. and they don't. make me and i want that on that one. and what happened when the blast went off that he. was a disaster that it was the that. they looked at or 2 offices or one kilometer of the broken glasses on or just 3 and you see many many injuries over that this week for for god for them the absence of

evidence in gandhi was that in the letter in 'd the. not. to be more in the yes they got to do. during this explosion at a member who really. must be eighty's was not censured it's funny that everyone we've spoken to the seafront has said more or less the the same thing this is brought back some very unpleasant feelings and memories i mean this really will have traumatized the city won't it. this really will have traumatized the city won't it. i mean i didn't see anybody. i was saying that this really will have traumatized people in beirut yet.

how do you think the the city will will react the people will react what what will happen now. i think given the super bowl of anybody's people they supported the prophet's government and i think they they did not the young new way for anything important for n.b.c. it is under government i think let me think of the encounter. the sense. that when the when we need. there would be a for example 'd let's see. for example. you do do to start the investigations and i think that would not be a serious investigation. that is the good that presented.

to the international community 'd is seated in the legion and see the result to what happened in the. court because many questions on the many questions. over the old boy were what happened. before and it's false and dysfunctional to what it did for the houses who didn't know about it. explode didn't do it wrong and what today they are stored over there. 'd and what we still need that. need also to them that she took institution they did not think any see the men busy measures. or 4 hours. 'd after the explosion we didn't see anything any intervention from any minute or so to asking really they be waiting for that mission from somebody to take over and

to start looking. for the security of that in. but if you see what the plus some think some think at this this level of 05 years would be all of that and you really did not realize. and you think that is a very shoot from from the prime minister even from the bit of the interior ministry and i think that in that sense what kind of a mission was the store in this and the drought. is this a part of that i mean smart weapons for example. in the pulse. is part of that explosion that. you know off and what will be the implications of this accident. that it has become.

so. many many many question many that and if they do they are what we're going to have to this i'm going to i'm going to have to stop you. but. many thanks indeed for being with us really appreciate your thoughts. france's president of money will mark wrong has issued a statement saying i expressed my fraternal solidarity with the lebanese after the explosion which caused so many victims and damage the same thing in beirut france stands alongside lebanon always french aid and resources are being delivered to the sites. so we know now that at least 30 people have been killed in this explosion today lebanese security officials say the blast was triggered by explosive materials stored in a warehouse in the port area of the city which is the hamas of beirut the president has called an emergency meeting prime minister has called for

a national day of mourning on whether the state. lawrence taylor we'll continue our coverage of the aftermath of the beirut blast in just a few moments here on al-jazeera stay with us. 15 years ago an explosion ripped through lebanon's capital killing prime minister graffiti and 21 others now the special tribunal for lebanon in the hague will deliver its verdict on august 7th find out what this means for lebanon and for those and i didn't follow all the developments on a. where there is water there is life but finding it and australia's arid deserts

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al-jazeera. will ever reach. an hour. a massive explosion sends shock waves across beirut killing 27 people and injuring more than 2000 hundreds more a trapped in their homes. a top lebanese security official says the blast was triggered by confiscated explosive material that was stored in a warehouse in the port area.