An explosion in Beirut on Tuesday may have killed over 100 people and caused much property damage.
Some estimates had the death toll at over 100, with thousands injured and enormous damage to property and vehicles.
Initial reports indicated that a storage depot which contained highly explosive material had caught fire, and then exploded.
Videos on social media showed black smoke billowing from a building in the heart of the city’s port, and then an explosion, with a mushroom cloud clearly visible (mushroom clouds are not only caused by nuclear explosions but can be caused by any large explosion), as well as the resulting shockwave.
There were reports that the explosion had been felt in Cyprus, 240 km away.
Lebanese President, Michel Aoun, said that nearly 3 000 tons of ammonium nitrate had been stored in a warehouse at the port, and this is what had caused the explosion. The ammonium nitrate had been seized from a ship in 2013 and stored at the port since then. It is still unclear what caused the initial fire, leading to the explosion.
The incident could not have come at a worse time for Lebanon, which is in the midst of a political and economic crisis, with the country also struggling to manage the Covid-19 pandemic.
Image by Alexander Antropov from Pixabay