Violent Explosion in Beirut: A city in shock

The huge Explosion was heard more than seventy miles, the soil of the Lebanese capital, shook, and in a Radius of several kilometers, destroying the pressure wave building, or made them uninhabitable. Complete the Beirut port area is destroyed, difficult the surrounding area is taken. The Windows are broken, doors were torn out of the car through the air. In some neighborhoods were houses in. At least 50 people were killed, more than 2750 injured, was reported on Tuesday evening by the government.

Christoph Ehrhardt

a correspondent for the Arab countries, based in Beirut.

Rainer Hermann

editor in the policy.

Clueless people in front of their destroyed houses and ask what they should do now. Torn-out balconies are on the streets, which are littered with shards of glass. Beirut is in shock. It is panic and Chaos. The sirens of the ambulance wailing, often you can carve no way to get to the port area. Ambulances transporting people injured in the overburdened hospitals, which had already overcome the pandemic.

One of the First to arrive after the Explosion at the port site, is Abbas Ibrahim, the head of the National security. He did not want to tire the investigation front, he said. The first impression is that it's made by the Explosion of explosives or fireworks acted as the first had been, but of high explosive materials. Before the Explosion, firefighters had cleared in the port of a fire. The contact was canceled. Some TV channel reports, in the warehouse, the confiscation had been graced with the goods stored.

The Beirut port, Lebanon doubly important. To be introduced about him most of the food for the Lebanon itself produces hardly any of its own goods. In order to Finance the enormous and chronic deficit in the balance of trade, was instructed to Lebanon is always on Remittances from abroad, especially from the Lebanese from the Diaspora. The money inflow dried up, however, increasingly, and also the Gulf monarchies have a limit because of the inability and unwillingness of the political class, the influence of the Shia organisation Hizbullah, their Transfers set.

on The other, the harbour is a Symbol of the endemic corruption in the country. Illegal transactions are handled by him, including those for Syria. The Reform of the port was at the top of the list of claims of international institutions, to which Lebanon is increasingly dependent. The International monetary Fund has, however, discontinued due to a lack of willingness to reform, negotiations on a loan of tens of billions of dollars.

The Explosion occurred only two kilometers from the Parliament and the historic centre, rebuilt after the civil war from 1975 to 1990. There denomination met since last October across the Lebanese people, against the corrupt political class to rebel and demonstrate against the rapid economic decline of the country. In the past few months, thousands of businesses were forced to close, unemployment reached a record high, the national currency has lost this year, 80 percent of their value. Each third of Lebanese live below poverty line. A load of the 1.5 million Syrian refugees are also, thus, every fourth resident of the country is a Syrian.