What has happened in Beirut? 50 dead, thousands injured

Just shocking, no more really to say, appalling!

Lemongrove that’s interesting.

It used to be a beautiful city of culture, cafes, lovely food and people just getting on with their lives ... It has been through so much war and strife and now it looks like it has been hit by a nuclear holocaust.

Those poor people ...

Just terrible! After all Beirut has been through in the past.
I visited the city ( a long long time ago) when it was a lovely vibrant place.
I hope the rescuers find casualties quickly.

I'm sure the death toll will continue to rise. An awful event for people who'll find it so hard to cope, survive or rebuild.

100 dead.
4 thousand injured.
A welding accident started a fire which ignited the stored fertiliser.

I mentioned how sorry I was earlier on the Good Morning thread. Terrible news and as others have mentioned it looked more like a nuclear bomb had exploded . Those poor people.

Such awful news, confiscated haul was the source of the explosion, which looked something akin to what we all imagine a nuclear bomb going off would look like. The noise from that could be heard as far away as Cyprus.

So sorry for the people, who have lived through turbulent times in recent history. 100 dead and 4,000 injured so far, do hope the rest of the world will rally around them.

It was reported that it had been stored in the warehouse for six years.

Yes, Maizie there seemed to be a fire just before the huge explosion.

It was, apparently stored at the port and was 'in transit'.

From the video clips I've seen it looks as though there was something on fire initially, but then it caught the warehouse, which exploded.

Unimaginable for those poor souls. Lebanon is already having terrible economic problems as it is.

If this has been deliberate there'll be one Hell of a price to pay.

Shocking ! Why would explosives be stored near a city ?

It was like a nuclear explosion absolutely dreadful.

Yes, watching the news now, so much of it stored near the city centre. No-one seems to know yet what set it off, but Beirut has suffered so much already

This is so shocking.
Apparently, so it is reported, it was a store of ammonium nitrate which exploded.