On a better path so i think right now its going to be about you know counting the losses and i think we havent scratched the surface yet have a good start to many thanks have. Found out of beirut reports it is 1800 hours g. M. T. Hello im Adrian Finighan this is aljazeera if youve just joined us theres been a huge explosion and lebanons capital beirut at least 10 people have been killed Lebanese SecurityOfficials Say the blast was triggered by explosive material that was stored in a warehouse in the force area which is at the heart of the sense here lebanons president has called an emergency meeting of the Prime Minister has called a national day of mourning on what the state the head of the Lebanese Red Cross says that hundreds of injured people have been taken to hospital but that many people are still trapped in the homes the cause of the blast is still on clear at the moment israel however has issued a statement denying any involvement. Omar shelby is a criminal justice analyst he joins us now on the line from beirut ahmad good to have you with us. Take us through your experience of what happened today where were you when this happened. Because the connection is not very good but what i can tell you is that this was one of the i think the largest explosion i mean i lived through the whole war and we never had an explosion that large you know the explosion that took place at the airport at the seaport im sorry and its a warehouse of highly explosive material its still not clear what this material is about one in there are some early reports that this is a trick and fertilizer now what has caused the explosion there was obviously a fire and then later on at lead to an explosion the investigations on the way the lebanese are to be doing the investigation with some judicial authorities the judicial part is over to the investigation i dont think we will have any indications that are accurate until tomorrow however the explosion created a lot of destruction all over the city we have many many wounded still being moved to the hospital right now and apparently there are allegations that the court that there are some victims under the rubble so there are rescue operations on the way to get more people from under that are now the country has been going through a lot of problems but this comes at a time when the country is under. Is under very very difficult Economic Situation the local currency has been has lost its value 10 times its value. There is a government where things are not going very well with the government yesterday there was that i think michel the foreign minister and on top of that you have the corona Virus Outbreak at the contamination that has been increasing in the past 3. So adding to these 2 problems the economic and financial. Crisis and the corona. Explosion and theres talk about chemical agent. Take acid its not sure but there is that there was. Any change in the city in parts of the city and the cloud was a produced by this huge explosion is colored reddish orange and therefore it is a very unusual color that indicates probably that there is a chemical. 3 agent we dont know how dangerous this is but the People Experts are advising people to stay home if this turns out to be an industrial accident accident source who takes responsibility how do people who are victims. Been injured if they have relatives whove been killed how do they get justice. Me yes this is this is the big question and i think its still very much early for anyone to answer it however we can tell you and i can tell the viewers that this country has been suffering with the whole process of whole thing people in positions of responsibility accountable. System of accountability that is supposed to be part of the democratic system and also any government is not functioning. You know there are 5 so many reports of corruption in government and people in positions of power and in positions in the government have not been held accountable although in many cases there was a lot of evidence that shows that they have been involved in corruption you know their biggest fear is that. Something that has to do with politics because also. We are expecting d at the judgment of from the special tribunal for lebanon on friday so it would be you know everybody i mean it would be expected that people will make a correlation between those 2 events now its not sure scientifically and judicially theres nothing to indicate any correlation or there are no signs that indicate that the criminal act has been done on purpose and that its related to the judgment that its supposed to come out on friday. However we dont know yet i mean that were still very much early on in the investigation so and i as the investigation has to remain confidential until its completed so we have to wait a few hours more to know more. 5 comes out of this investigation and if this was an accidental or what attack we cannot have a confirmation to 5 confirm any of these 2 possible. Once people got over the shock the Emotional Trauma of what theyve lived through today. Im assuming that they will they will become angry how do you think that they will they will vent that anger anger is this is this a dangerous moment for the country. Oh magic can you hear me now im afraid we we seem to have lost the line to. Lets. Talk about. I have a 2nd well were going to go back to the bus again whos a journalist the founder of the beirut report hes been with us over the last half an hour or so are you a presumably listening to to what omar was saying that you want to add anything to that. Well i think that you know this country is not prepared for a disaster and you know its hanging by a thread and so you know weve always lived in fear of a major catastrophe a Natural Disaster an earthquake you know this country has no emergency readiness and no response there are barely enough police to control the highway which are and extremely dangerous so anything any place where you where you find a government try to put in regulations and safety for citizens and any country you live in we dont have any of that here so theres no Highway Patrol theres no fire inspections of buildings you know there are many buildings and beirut thats a little bit urals i interviewed firefighters for a story once and they didnt have Fire Fighting suits to go into fire so so you know that there and the infrastructure the country is so bad some of the roads in lebanon are this are made for donkey carts literally i mean theyve been the same roads for hundreds of years probably so you know that everything is very tight tight squeezes tightly fitted warehouses you know of things that are very flammable you know gas station there are that sort of and we had a gas station blow up in lebanon a few years d ago because of the gas tank so theres no regulation on how. Substances are controlled and this country and then you have those who claim that they were weapons. That were stored there but again we have no ability to know that people are just jumping to conclusions and theyre so anxious and theyre ready to you know a lynch anything any any any cause or person that they hold response for without even having evidence and so people are on edge in this country you know just driving around they could were just driving so crazily a mess before all this happened so you know you know this is just one example of how a country that doesnt have any kind of urgency preparation will really suffer very badly in any other nonsequential you know we expected earthquakes in this country for a long. Time were on the fault zone we have a number of dangerous government projects that are building on fault zones and so this is kind of a rehearsal for how bad is it but just that really reiterate it was like a Natural Disaster because it didnt just affect the area or the few blocks around the explosion site i have friends that live 10 or 15 minutes away who showed me their entire house and their room were blown out and i just wonder how people are going to sleep tonight without windows. And so exactly im sorry to interrupt you we were nice we talked earlier we this is kind of such a a terrible time for lebanon economically and politically we were talking about the fact that the country is going to need some help after this because i mean the port as you were saying is where or all materials for the food the people need to eat are imports is where is that help going to come from. Thats another great question you know i love it on because its in this cold war between iran and the u. S. And saudi arabia and nobody wants to help lebanon unless lebanon follows the politics that they want and the problem is that lebanon is not aligned it cannot be just you know marshaled into one position or another you know the u. S. Has demanded and put pressure on lebanon economically but sanctions as you know restricted flights for decades because of hezbollah because they feel that its you know a terrorist group and supporting terrorist countries so they have pressure on us and that way the other other countries have put pressure on us to turn away from the u. S. But as a small country its very hard to take positions like that because youre really at the whim of other countries and other countries have refused to help lebanon unless there is some kind of political reform political reform again it doesnt every kind of help has Strings Attached you know foreign aid is not charity and countries have been trying to aim lebanon for a decade but theyve done so in a certain way that promotes their own interest in the country ok so the problem with aid that it always that strains that patched up in impoverished the country more because of the high debt rates Interest Rate on debt will be extremely high borrowing costs a lot going on and there are lot of debate about how that came to be because its an unstable country so you know lebanon and someone doesnt know where to turn to because everybody wants a certain agenda in the country and no one wants to give any prefer to have a woman question. If you look at the from where im sitting in it im not saying in front of a computer here and im looking at all the the Wire Services and the. House or off of the blast theres a theres a statement. Comes in the Israeli Government israel have nothing to do with beirut last quoting Israeli Government official what what are we to make of that remarkable. Denial and so very quickly after that happened. Yeah it tells you a lot doesnt it i mean it why would you immediately say youre not really do with a crime that you were nowhere near the crime scene so so so what you say you can tell actually because were blaming israel because israel has been ball and those kind of bombing so many times and love are not that it almost knows that we will blame it so the fact that that even happening tells you a deeper story about the relation between lebanon and israel which has been a very violent one i mean weve been on the receiving end of that most entirely the number of casualties and whatnot so they you know look it wont believe its real people do not believe this because theyve lied so many times in lebanon and theyve broken so many cease fires and people people here feel that they are you know a kind of but a very violent government thats willing to make any kind of light to get its way so it might have been israel might not have they might have had nothing to do with this but even if they didnt have to do with it thats how complicated lebanon is is that once one of bents violent event happens it can be read in so many ways they could still have a but other. Speaking from from lebanon if you just joined us this is sara spent a huge explosion in lebanons capital beirut at least 10 people are known to have been killed that that death toll though is going to increase in the coming hours and days Lebanese SecurityOfficials Say that that. Was triggered by an explosive material that was stored in a warehouse in the port area which is of the hearts of the city the president has called an emergency meeting the Prime Minister has called a national day of mourning for wednesday the head of the Lebanese Red Cross says that hundreds of people have been taken to hospital. With blast injuries. Many are still trapped in their homes the initial blast wave. Court. Travel. Away from the actual size of the blast and homes buildings were damaged windows were blown out. People suffered cuts bruises injuries the cause of the stage unclear although as we were saying just a few moments ago israel was quick to issue a statement denying any involvement aljazeera saying a honda is life outside the poor in beirut where that explosion happened and youve been with the sing you say this is that explosion some pretty chaotic scenes there. Yes a dream chaotic scenes outside beirut port as the ambulances arrived to evacuated the wounded but we have since moved to one of the hospitals in the center of beirut the American University hospital where most of the injured have been taken there are also requests on social media for people to donate blood because really dozens and dozens of people were injured in this massive massive blast that took the lebanese capital when you mentioned explosive material at one of the warehouses that is what the head of one of the 11 on security agencies general Major General about suppressing him announced about approximately an hour ago and now we are hearing from lebanons interior minister mohammad for me what he is saying is that the highly explosive Ammonium Nitrate was stored in the ports and he says that the lebanese people should ask customs about why it was there so officials trying to really distance themselves on what this highly explosive material was doing at the beirut port that caused this massive blast that has taken the law. Its of at least 10 people that is what we understand from Lebanese Security sources but dozens and dozens of people have been injured some hospitals have started to turn away patients the Health Care System in lebanon is under a lot of pressure not just because of an economic crisis but because of an upsurge in the number of coronavirus cases this is a government which is cash strapped this is a state which is close to bankruptcy and this is a state that owns billions of dollars to lebanons private hospitals one of those private hospitals as this one a h. But what we understand is that they are receiving the injured and treating those who are injured but there are calls now for people to donate blood all types of blood in order to help those who were hurt many of them. In their injuries as a result of falling falling glass and as you can see family members outside the hospital waiting for news about their loved ones there was panic when just moments after that massive explosion i was not very far from a u. H. This hospital when it happened and we are a few kilometers from beirut port and i felt the the scale and the magnitude of of this blast which which shook the ground pushed us to the to the ground and caused a lot of panic among residents who had no idea what had just happened and the smoke the color of the smoke what i saw was orange so maybe it makes im not an expert but now that the lebanese interior minister saying that this highly explosive Ammonium Nitrate was stored at the beirut port so many many questions are now going to be answered what was this material doing at a beirut port why. It was its there who put it there and so and but right now the concern of many lebanese as you can see is the condition of their loved ones who are now inside the emergency at the emergency room this is a city on edge a country on edge people on their nerves who are really concerned and worried about what tomorrow will bring their livelihoods have been shattered by this explosion many many shops have been damaged goods on the floor for so many people this is all that they had left in a country where there is a deep economic recession in a country where businesses have been closing people have been losing their jobs and the Health Care System that is collapsing this is one of the biggest hospitals in levanon and a few weeks ago they laid off 850 nurses and administrators because they could not pay their salaries because the government owes private hospitals billions of dollars and that is why some hospitals have started to turn away patients because they dont have the supplies needed to help them so now all. The priority now is for to to help 8 and trade to those who were injured in this blast and i can tell you the past but this been 3 hours now since the explosion i havent seen and ive seen ambulances come and go nonstop to the explosion site. And and taking the injured to the hospitals across across the capital all right set up many things such as there is a to hold a reporting live there from beirut lets speak to the head of khalifa who. Was formerly lebanons Health Minister he joins us now on blind. Beirut good to have you with us so we saw their anxious relatives waiting outside the hospital for news of. That dearest the nearest whove been injured in this blast hundreds of people injured as day and all of this is happening in the midst of a pandemic can the citys Health Services cope. Oh ho. Good evening i can leverage Health Services cope. Let me be listening actually myself and my family literally. Im living next door in a very city and still in the complex sort of sadness and there was looting just i left because of the high position we were all sleeping hundreds of casualties along with my team because still im operating at a critical success. I think it is it is just that i never feel Something Like that except when i was today and during the rough time really but he said it was people there were rushing and hundreds no place to accommodate it and what team is it one of the biggest seemed like 100. 00 positions and now theyre actually we could absorb the shock we managed to do in several waves and really we have