BEIRUT: Two massive explosions shook Beirut’s port on Tuesday, killing at least 73 people and wounding 3,700, shaking distant buildings and leaving the Lebanese capital in chaos.
The cause remained unclear hours later. But officials in the Lebanese capital said 2,750 tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate had been stored in a depot at the center of the explosion.
The blasts came within seconds of each other.
First, an explosion in Beirut’s port, possibly from a fireworks warehouse, sent a plume of smoke billowing over the capital skyline early Tuesday evening.
Then a much larger explosion from a building nearby shot a chrysanthemum of orange and red smoke into the air followed by a massive shock wave of whitish dust and debris that rose hundreds of feet and spread out for blocks.
The country is already reeling from its worst economic crisis in decades which has left nearly half of the population in poverty, as well as the coronavirus pandemic. Lebanon´s economy has collapsed in recent months, with the local currency plummeting, businesses closing en masse and poverty soaring at the same alarming rate as unemployment.
