BEIRUT — A large explosion rocked the port area of Lebanon's capital, Beirut, on Tuesday, injuring thousands and causing widespread damage in a densely populated part of the city.
At least 2,500 people have been injured and 25 killed, Minister of Health Hamad Hasan told the Lebanese Broadcasting Company, a local broadcaster. Those numbers are likely to rise with hospitals filling fast.
Images and videos on social media appear to show large plumes of smoke and damaged buildings in the Middle Eastern country, but the cause of the blast and exact location are not immediately clear.
Lebanon's National News Agency reported the cause may have been a fire in a hangar where explosives were being stored in the Beirut port, on the country's west coast.
The head of Lebanon's General Security Agency Abbas Ibrahim toured the Beirut port, inspecting the damage and said: "It is not possible to preempt investigations and say that there was a terrorist act."
Images and videos posted on social media and verified by NBC News' social newsgathering team, compared with satellite imagery, appear to corroborate that the explosion happened at a warehouse at Beirut Port Silos.
The national news agency also reported that wheat was being stored in a nearby warehouse. While fire trucks were en route to the scene and evacuation operations were underway, it said. Military and security personnel were also trying to ease traffic to make way for emergency vehicles.
Beirut explosion witnesses watch in shock among smoke and rubble
Aug. 4, 202001:44The Lebanese Red Cross also confirmed on Twitter that it had more than 30 teams including ambulances responding to the blast and had put out an urgent call for blood donations.
"Injuries are definitely within the hundreds," a spokesman for the Lebanese Red Cross told NBC News by telephone. "I cannot give a specific number of casualties at the moment, we are overwhelmed with cases."
Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on Twitter that the Ministry of Health would meet the expense of treatment for the wounded and that the government would provide shelter and support to displaced families whose properties were damaged in the blast.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian offered condolences and said it was ready to offer assistance to its former colony.
'It's like Hiroshima'
Footage from the Daily Star, a Lebanese newspaper's offices in the city, appear to show parts of the roof fallen in, blown-out windows and damaged furniture, indicating the strength of the blast.
An NBC News journalist in the city felt the explosion from her apartment, more than a kilometer from the port, as her windows and doors were blown out, filling the stairwell with thick dust as residents dashed to exit the building.
Dozens of residents, some covered in blood, scrambled to their cars to leave the area for the safety of nearby mountains, a population accustomed to catastrophe.
"It's like Hiroshima," the mayor of Beirut told the Lebanese Broadcasting Company, a local broadcaster.
"There is lots of destruction and the wounded are lying in the streets."
Another NBC News journalist said the blast was "colossal" and could be felt miles away as it rippled through the capital, leaving a trail of destruction behind.
Video shows shocking moment of Beirut, Lebanon, explosion
Aug. 4, 202000:20The Lebanese news agency also reported that Prime Minister Hassan Diab and other ministers were at the site, inspecting damage from the blast.
The U.S. State Department have yet to comment on the blast. Israel's Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi told a local television channel that it was too early to speculate on the causes and that there was no reason to believe it was not an accident.
Lebanon is in the midst of a number of social and political crises.
On Friday, the country is bracing for a U.N.-backed court to deliver a verdict on the death of its former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, who was killed by a truck-bomb in 2005, sending the country’s fragile political system into turmoil.
It is also grappling with the deadly coronavirus pandemic and a spiraling economic crisis, the most severe in its modern history, that has pushed many Lebanese people to protest in the streets this year, as unemployment soars.
This is a breaking news story, more updates to follow.
