Lebanon's Information Minister has announced a two week state of emergency in Beirut.

The cabinet has also asked security forces to ensure that no-one tampers with the scene of the explosion, news agency Reuters reports.

BBC OS

One Beirut resident has been describing to BBC OS on World Service radio the immediate aftermath of the explosion.

Pascal Torbey was sitting outside Starbucks with friends when he heard the blast. He drove to his family, who were on the sixth floor of an apartment block.

"I didn't feel like I would find them alive," he said. "When I saw the building, I thought they would have passed away."

Luckily both his wife and 10-year-old son were alive, but his wife May has had to have five surgical procedures on her face after glass flew into it. A video showing her undergoing surgery, external has been viewed 45,000 times on Twitter.

Image source, Pascal Torbey

Pascal says there were around 100 to 150 people lying on the ground of the hospital.

"It was a catastrophic scene. Something I've never seen in my life. There was blood everywhere, people crying, people screaming.

"I would call it a Hollywood scene, but unfortunately it was real."

Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC anti-disinformation team

The blast has been blamed on a large quantity of ammonium nitrate stored in a warehouse at the port, but how did it get there?

Here’s what we’ve been able to piece together so far from online open sources.

According to FleetMon, a database of ships and ports, a Russian-owned general cargo vessel called Rhosus set sail from Georgia to Mozambique in September 2013, carrying 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate.

The Moldovan-flagged vessel called at Beirut port after facing technical difficulties. It was inspected by Port State Control officers, who found “deficiencies” and banned it from sailing, resulting in Rhosus being stranded in Beirut.

The majority of the ship’s Ukrainian crew were repatriated on the grounds that they were in “imminent danger” due to the explosive nature of the cargo on board.

The ammonium nitrate was later stored in a warehouse dubbed “hangar 12”, which - according to videos of the blast - was the epicentre of the explosion.

A letter shared on social media indicates customs officials had warned judges of the risks associated with storing the explosives in hangar 12 on several occasions between 2014 and 2017.

The Queen has sent a message of condolence to the President of the Republic of Lebanon, saying she and the Duke of Edinburgh are "deeply saddened" by the huge blast.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those who have been injured or lost their lives, and all those whose homes and livelihoods have been affected," she said.

Some news just in.

Lebanon has placed Beirut port officials responsible for storage and security under house arrest pending an investigation into the deadly explosion. An emergency cabinet meeting took the decision today.

The Lebanese army will oversee the house arrests while the investigation continues.

Customs chief Badri Daher told LBCI TV that his agency had repeatedly called for the ammonium nitrate to be removed from the port, but "this did not happen, and we leave it to the experts to determine the reasons".

The Lebanon director of Islamic Relief, Nidal Ali, has told the BBC that the country's ability to import food supplies will be minimal now its main port is unusable.

Tripoli does not have adequate capacity, he says.

A doctor from St George University Hospital, Marie Eid, told the BBC the hospital was totally destroyed and the staff were forced to use the car park as a makeshift treatment area.

"I actually live next to the hospital and as soon as we heard the blast and we knew that the people there needed help my colleagues and I rushed to the ER to find that there was actually nothing left out of the hospital.

"The hospital was actually in pieces... We transformed the parking lot of the hospital into a hospital itself. The people were panicking, the staff, we had a lot of staff who were badly injured and they had to take care of the patients who were inside the emergency room, in the ICU."

She said the medical staff had to deal with life-threatening conditions in the car park. "The hospital was full of patients and it became completely non-functional so we had to evacuate all the patients to the ground floor or actually to the ER floor, and outside of the ER we didn't have any electricity.

"We had patients who had [cardiac] arrests in the parking lot of the ER and emergency doctors were rushing to them, trying to intubate and we were doing cycles of arrests on the patients in the parking lot. It was truly very, very traumatic experience."

Footage captured by drone shows the scale of the destruction after the explosion.

Image source, Reuters

Janez Lenarcic, the EU's commissioner for crisis management, says they "share the shock and sadness of the people of Beirut".

"At this difficult time, the European Union offers its full support to the Lebanese people," he said in a statement, external.

He said more than 100 "highly trained" firefighters with vehicles, dogs and equipment will be deployed to Beirut to "work with the Lebanese authorities to save lives on the ground".

The Netherlands, Greece and the Czech Republic have already confirmed their participation, he said, with France, Poland and Germany also offering assistance.

Reha Kansara
BBC Trending

As the hunt continues for people missing after Tuesday’s blast, an Instagram account called “Locating Victims Beirut”, external has amassed more than 80,000 followers.

The account has posted nearly 100 requests for help in locating people who haven’t been in touch since the explosion.

The BBC has attempted to contact the anonymous person behind the account. Traffic appears high – the account's “stories” feature indicates that it may be receiving at least 100 messages every minute.

Although the account is quickly becoming a hub for information and to connect missing family and friends, some are warning about the potential for false reports and scaremongering.

Under the photo of one missing man, a user commented: “Please don’t share news unless sure!”

Jeremy Bowen
BBC Middle East editor

Image source, Reuters

Lebanon has been in a deep crisis since the end of last year - economic, political, and then medical when the pandemic started.

There were people on the streets demanding a revolution until they were forced by Covid-19 to take shelter and get off the streets.

So many Lebanese are saying right now that this tragedy that's happened there, this cataclysm, is the result of a breakdown in a corrupt political system.

Big questions have to be answered. Who knew that the ammonium nitrate was there?

Why was it there? Was it simply some kind of dreadful negligence?

Or was it something more sinister? Something to do with bribery and corruption? Or did somebody, some entity, know it was there and were just keeping it until a time that the explosive force might be needed?

Loads of these questions need answering and I don’t think there is a great deal of confidence among many Lebanese about whether they will get straight answers

And that in itself will have consequences because there is a limit to how much a country can take before they get back on to the streets again, demanding change - as they were for weeks and weeks and weeks either side of Christmas and the New Year.

Marianna Spring
Specialist disinformation and social media reporter

Rumours about the cause of the Beirut blast quickly spread on social media in the immediate aftermath of the explosion.

Some videos showed smaller explosions and an initial fire followed by the major blast, which led to tweets suggesting this was a fire at a firework factory.

Claims about fireworks seemed plausible at the time, but other viral tweets suggested the event was caused by a nuclear bomb because of the white mushroom-like cloud seen rising in some of the footage.

Weapons experts have been quick to point out that had the explosion been caused by a nuclear bomb, it would have been accompanied by a blinding white flash and a surge of heat that would have severely burned people.

Also, mushroom clouds are not unique to nuclear bombs. According to experts, they are a result of the compression of humid air, which condenses water and creates the cloud.

Nonetheless, unfounded claims continued to spiral, blaming the "nuclear bomb" on either the US, Israel or Hezbollah. These were shared by various partisan news sites, as well as public figures.

Chloe Colliver from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue told BBC News, “We have seen known disinformation sources, including far-right extremist networks online, spreading unfounded claims about the nature and motivations behind the blast. This has included theories trying to tie the explosion to Israel or other nation states.

“We have also seen claims building off President Trump's statement about the explosion as an 'attack,' which has provided fuel to conspiracy and disinformation communities over the past 24 hours, demonstrating the risks of inaccurate language and communications during crisis moments.”

Both the authorities in Lebanon and Israel have dismissed suggestions that Israel had something to do with the incident.

It’s an important reminder that breaking news events are a fertile time for misinformation and speculation online. Think before you share.

The BBC's Rami Ruhayem reports from Gemmayze in Beirut, the closest residential area to the port. This is a hub of commercial property, bars, restaurants and NGO offices. He says where people were standing when the explosion happened will have meant the difference between life and death.

France is sending three planes with rescuers, medical equipment and a mobile clinic to Beirut on Wednesday, with President Emmanuel Macron visiting the disaster-hit city on Thursday, news agency AFP reports.

The first two military planes have 55 search and rescue personnel on board, along with 25 tonnes of sanitary equipment and a mobile clinic which is able to treat 500 people.

Twelve more emergency workers will be sent soon "to reinforce hospitals in the Lebanese capital," said the presidency announced.

A third private humanitarian plane was leaving later on Wednesday. It will bring medical personnel to Beirut. Marseille - the city where the plane will leave from - is sending four doctors, three nurses and two marine firefighters.

Image source, EPA

Residents of the Mar Mikhael district of the city of Beirut have been describing their experiences of Tuesday's devastating blast.

"There was a very loud noise," Eli Zakari said.

"Something hit me and I lost consciousness but for half a minute, one minute, I mean... it was hell.

"Screams, we were being tossed around, sparks were flying."

Terez said: "I was heading to work. I went to sit down and the entire office fell on my head.

"I couldn't hear anything. I don't know if it was an explosion or what... all I know is that I went flying under the rubble."

"I was there on the highway about 500 metres away," Eli Erani said.

"The explosion threw my car forward about five metres. The windows were blown out."

BBC Radio 5 Live

Image source, EPA

"A friend had sent me a video of the fire at the port and heard a huge boom, and there was a second even more enormous boom," Vivian Yee, a journalist for the New York Times based in Beirut, told Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 5 Live on Wednesday.

"Next thing I knew I was in a cyclone of broken glass from my windows… When I could see, I saw the house and the neighbourhood completely shattered.

“There were a lot of people I saw wounded who were much, much worse off than I was, people with makeshift tourniquets.

“I tried to get to a local hospital with the help of some strangers and it was just completely full. We’ve learnt today that the hospital lost several nurses, as well as patients in the ICU, because the power went out."

However, people who had grown up during the Lebanese civil war had instinctively known what to do, and ran into hallways, she noted.

“They had been taught since they were kids to get away from windows, anything that could break and cut them.”

“Beirut has been through a lot," Yee added. "Nothing exactly like this - there was the civil war from 1975 to 1990, there have been car bombs, assassinations… in the last few years it’s been much quieter.

"But people are resilient and it shows."

A very warm welcome if you're just joining us to find out the latest from Lebanon.

Let's catch up with what we know has happened in Beirut.

A fire broke out in the capital's port on Tuesday afternoon.

Then, at about 18:00 local time (15:00 GMT), it is believed a warehouse containing many thousands of tonnes of a substance called ammonium nitrate exploded, sending out a blast which damaged as much as half the city, flattening the port around it.

It left at least 100 people dead, and more than 4,000 injured.

Search and rescue operations are still taking place. The Red Cross has set up temporary morgues, and a number of countries are sending aid, including setting up field hospitals.

We will continue to bring you the latest from Beirut here on the live page, or you can read our latest full report here.

The highly explosive substance blamed for Tuesday's blast was meant to be moved, the port's general manager has told local broadcaster OTV.

Hassan Koraytem said the ammonium nitrate had been in the port for six years, following a court order.

But, despite instructions from the customs department and state secretary to move or export it, "nothing happened", he told the broadcaster.

Image source, Reuters

A huge store of ammonium nitrate has been blamed for the explosion at Beirut's port - but what is the chemical?

Ammonium nitrate is a crystal-like white solid which is made in large industrial quantities. Its biggest use is as a source of nitrogen for fertiliser, but it is also used to create explosions for mining.

Read more here.