Beirut blast: Lebanon in mourning after massive explosion
Media playback is unsupported on your device"Now I'm shaking, all the way from up to down" - Eyewitnesses describe the power of the explosion
He scheduled an urgent cabinet meeting for Wednesday, and said a two-week state of emergency should be declared.President Aoun also announced that the government would release 100 billion lira of emergency funds. Local media showed people trapped beneath rubble. A witness described the explosion as deafening, and video footage showed wrecked cars and blast-damaged buildings."All the buildings around here have collapsed. I'm walking through glass and debris everywhere, in the dark," one witness near the port told AFP news agency.The blast was also felt 240km away on the island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean, with people there saying they thought it was an earthquake.
Lebanon imports most of its food; its economy has been in freefall for almost a year, amid fears of widespread food insecurity to come. Actually we were shocked because usually when it happens, just one area will experience those happenings after an explosion, but this time it was all of Beirut, even areas outside of Beirut."Driving into Beirut early evening when it was still light, it was absolute chaos. The streets were literally covered in glass. It's hard for ambulances to go through - there's bricks, cement slabs. Houses have collapsed.
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