Covert 90. I dont sleep well. Ask the worried about. And despair for renters millions are facing eviction in the u. S. After coronavirus safeguards come to an end. With. The coronavirus pandemic gets underway as the worlds greatest players compete at the p. G. A. Championship. Lebanon is appealing for International Help after it was left devastated by a huge explosion a humanitarian crisis is developing 2 days after the blast shredded the heart of its capital beirut it destroyed the citys ports and more than half the countrys food supply comes through there its thought medical equipment was among the items lost in the explosion. A number of countries have already sent help including food fuel mobile hospitals and medics among them france is president emanuel macron has arrived in beirut. Today to produce to support the people without conditions but france has been warning for many months and years that the conditions here demand Reform EnergyPublic Markets to fight against corruption and if reforms are not made in lebanon will continue to suffer. But the information that officials knew volatile material was stored at the port for years is fueling more resentment against an already unpopular government some port officials are under house arrest lets go live to zain a hard shes standing by for us in beirut and say no we earlier saw people behind you angry with authorities there for not working fast enough trying to get on to the blast site saying their relatives were very is there a lot of anger over the rescue and recovery efforts. Well yes like you mentioned we were outside a report which is not very far from where we are and we saw families theyve been waiting since monday night for use about their loved ones dozens of people remain missing many of them employees out to beirut who are at the site of those massive explosions they were telling us its not enough that these the authorities were that diligent enough to keep highly explosive material at the ports but the search operation is just so slow but we managed to talk to red cross workers in the Lebanese Army and theyre telling us that that the struction its just very very difficult because lebanon does not have the equipment and now rescue teams from abroad are coming to help in the search operation but there is little hope that they are going to find more people alive over 100 people dead thousands injured many of them still in Critical Condition one woman said i dont know if ill ever see my husband again he was a daily wage earner barely earning 2 dollars a day and now she has nobody left to help her feed her 3 children so there is anger at a government that has not stepped in at a time of crisis and this anger like you mentioned is not new 11 on as in the midst of an antiestablishment protest movement which has tried for months to unseat the Political Class that has been ruling this country for decades then the french president has arrived hes the 1st foreign official to visit since the blast happened was he offering. What france is offering unconditional support to help those in need to help this country cope with this disaster but at the same time france we have to say you know france is a former colonial power 11 on its wheels influence in lebanon and france may have stepped in over the years to try to help this country out of the crisis but what the french president maybe we can just walk to show you the devastation and the destruction of this neighborhood which is very very close to the port that the french president. Visit just less than 2 weeks since his foreign minister was here and his foreign minister told the lebanese politicians youre not going to get billions of dollars in an age to be able to kick start the economy unless you carry out reforms unless you fix corruption in the state institutions including beirut ports at the International Community long talked about the need for reforms at bayview courts where theres a lot of tax evasion and the corruption is is endemic so mccrone said is that reiterate that conditions laid by the International Community no bailouts without reforms being carried out but at the same time making it very very clear the International Community will step in to help the lebanese people cope with this disaster a country that was already collapsing before the massive blast that you can just see behind me the state the state is not here it is the people who are cleaning up it is the people who are helping each other meeting each other and giving each other water. Yes we can see that i mean saying to the government i mean its under enormous pressure isnt it to be seen to be responding appropriately we know that port officials are somewhat officials are on house arrest but what is whats the state of the rest of the investigation. Well the government is promising a transparent and swift investigation they set up a committee and they said that the results of the investigation will be made public you know in a matter of days but very few people really have faith in a government that they believe is controlled by Political Parties who hold sway over state institutions the state is so weak that political powers are stronger than the state so they believe that there will be some sort of cover up and thats why there have been calls for an International Investigation they want International Investigators involved to find out who is responsible for placing this highly explosive material at bay reports which which is. Believed to be behind the cause of the explosions so public anger against the ruling class only. Only growing one man here told us that you know when when when the dust settles were going to be back on the streets but its what can they do when theyre up against a militarized state who still has supporters people who continue to benefit from the support from supporting the political powers who are stronger than the lebanese state. Bringing us the very latest from the blast site in beirut thanks very much they are. Account has been set up to help find people still missing it has more than 100000 followers the profile locate victims beirut has been sharing pictures of missing people provided by friends and family has helped the families identify a number of victims Receiving Hospital treatment who are unable to speak. As routine as a beirut resident her father works at the port but is amongst those missing and she joins us now via skype im so sorry to hear that your father is missing tell me how did you find out about but thank you for having me. So we can have the last in the house saturday. Was very bad we turned on the t. V. To see what happened and we saw that it was in the port so we started going baghdad everybody was quite exhausted. Already. Know what we didnt get the connection we couldnt. Nobody told us anything about him and didnt now we dont know anything about him and we think hes trapped underneath that opens of the bin so you dont think that hes been taken to hospital youve managed to check all the hospitals in beirut. Yes on tuesday we checked all of the hospitals we were divided into groups our families. Started searching the hospital is if somebody said they saw him or they think hes the man who started going corning and then now and nobody can give us anything about what is the search and rescue efforts at the site where you believe your father is trapped what do you know about that going on than actually do you know officially. Told us anything its only us we went there and they call them a school and we only know how it is that that got us the Civil Defense and hes our enemy searching for them. They get in big wind that we call them that my father is. They are 7 were at the. Top we think they are trapped actually and we call that the big where they all out and. Do they morning we got a new look and you would see that they thought that they are digging my that its ok so youre waiting for news right now you know. Why do you think all this happened tatyana i dont know why all this fuss when i think its much bigger than me or any citizen he i think its something with the government mean for some Political Party we dont have you know but i do think that my dad and his crew were innocent they do not deserve this they did not do this mess that that in all of their families all they look is gone and some people dont have a house now and people out on the streets we dont deserve this we have a graphic system and i think it should be we deserve better than this. We very much hope that you will be hearing some good news today thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us here on out is there. But lets take a look at how far reaching the damage is in beirut the explosion began at the industrial port thats where the government says 2700. 00 tons of Ammonium Nitrate was stored it happened not far from these busy commercial district theres widespread damage to buildings some reduced to rubble an upscale shopping district in downtown streets a layered was shattered glass as area was heavily redeveloped by the former Prime Minister rafik hariri off to the civil war beyond that the residential area of fear shockwave broke apartment buildings there damaging peoples homes even more and further out as one of beiruts main hospitals which was damaged in the hours after the blast it treated more than 500 people. Lets bring in. The from from birmingham in the u. K. Shes a lecturer in political geography and the author of war and the city urban geopolitics in lebanon thank you very much for joining us or just a little earlier in our live cross with our correspondents on the waterfront we saw pictures of the destruction of some of those Old Buildings there what is the extent of the devastation. Thank you for having me i think the location of the more it helps us understand the butler is events so this is a puritan is inside if it is center of a capital city when you realize mostly on imports so 7969. 00 all of the trade floor of lebanon or to beirut so. Origin expansions or is expanding its area right in front of a heavily populated neighborhood especially with our integrated Container Terminal and its a poor its no use looking at it right in between 2 kinds of neighborhoods still on the one hand you had to reconstruct this to the center of the one you just mentioned redevelop by the Company Owned by her it is the it area is a company that is critical to our morning to meet 2000000000 dollars as of a couple of years ago and its a space where there are a lot of investment thats going on in during the past 30 years to good theyve looked back on them out of International Investment of Market Investments and also through to leave the reputation of the city back from where it was you or interest in terms of of elation of urban culture and. You also have on the other side of the work. And the surrounding you to church and to solidarity you have not only yes if you have a host of other smaller neighborhoods money trail couldnt you know and the source of conflict i wish and these are much more mixed use neighborhoods and also mixed into a kind of social social economic. And this is where the damage is most widespread you have not only offices like for example you would have in the town and you would have also a resident probably read and his richness its shops and restaurants and cafes because it is mixed use and is dense. Because and his neighborhoods are the personal injury and immature damage has been much more deeper and quite right here and so its not uncommon in this neighborhood. Who through difficult work to actually why did a few traditional buildings Still Standing and you can say that what a civil war did not manage to ravage indias surrounding neighborhoods well this determination has. So this is just a situation so so how then does beirut go about rebuilding is no stranger to rebuilding its city as you mentioned from the civil war but now its a country on its knees did the economy is in ruins how does it go about rehabilitating. There is obviously a hostile well rehearsed manner a narrative zone between getting itself and you know the phoenix reason for it from the ashes but you really really need to start questioning how much traction this narrative as now as you mentioned the country was. Going through and hes going through an overlapping series of crises from college from financial breakdown public projects and so on. I think that before us. Whether it be a good career construct itself we need to summon up the conundrum which is about our more kind of political reconstruction we need to sort of the conundrum of what to our morning to 2000 tons of Ammonium Nitrate doing in side a city center of a capital city. So we need to understand who ordered our actors who want to look at decision to store does material there are and how was a decision taken and so the fact that you have a court free zone in florida which is which is basically giving us an emerging picture of a total lack of transparency and accountability how can it you have a freezer that is not the excess of the nocturnes are inside the city center of a cd losing battle so much of their ears are stuck and disconnect needs solving any needs solving not by leaving it to the new one is a lot now but by involving the International Community in trying to result is if you and i knew why we got to the bottom of that then we will start our understand how to reconstruct ok that sorry many thanks for joining us there from birmingham and you for having me. Well bring you more from lebanon later in this news hour and theres plenty more still ahead including. A somber tone in japan remembering the worlds 1st atomic bombing 75 years ago and this time there are extra precautions. Find out why a canadian pastore has been sent to prison in miramar for holding a religious gathering. And the defending n. B. A. Champions continue their winning streak peter will have all the action in sports. Counting is underway enshrined his parliamentary election which was delayed twice because of covert 19 the shoreline peoples front party led by rajapaksa brothers who serve as president and Prime Minister is expected to win a majority of south asias 1st major vote during the pandemic which would force a delay of over 4 months. Just joins us now live from colombo without any exit polls during this counting how do we get indicators of where the vote went. Generally laura what happens with sri lanka is the whole sort of mechanism of exit polls arent conducted here so what we do have as early indicators is at counting centers like the one that i am standing in front of here in the Colombo District each counting room essentially has representatives of Political Parties of independent candidates and each of them on a selected basis are given permits to sit in observe the count and usually each of those rooms when the count is completed theres a formal result sheet thats posted up outside and those representatives tend to give out that message who did what garnered what number of words and this is very much the kind of early indicators that we start hearing from within the counting centers of what we the paul has gone now so far we have been receiving some of the early results the official results the 1st of all to be counted obviously the ballot these are votes that are cast a couple of weeks before the election but by government essentially employees who are in stations that they cant go into their formal sort of polling station so the cost their votes or those of the 1st votes to be counted we have been hearing in the last hour and a half or so the results of individual sort of postal votes in particular areas and lot of them the indicators that were getting so far from some of these results from the south the p. P. Thats the party of the rajapaksa seems to be well ahead laura ok well help in a moment thanks very much well come back to you as we get more idea of yesterdays vote thanks very much rajiv which is seen there is a former m. P. And state minister and joins us via skype from korea were in sri lanka thanks very much for being with us through just heard from our correspondent yes p. P. Appears already to be well out in front all those the indications anyway what do you see the outcome being. Well i dont think there was ever any doubt that the s. L. It being the thats the party of the raj boxers would win a majority i think the only question is would they get a 2 thirds majority which would enable them to use the constitution quite interesting i think theyre going to be in tool for the electorate that have voted that the results have come out but thats far from the southern goal district and in that town as one would expect in the urban area its been said that b. P. Had one but with only just under 60 percent whereas d in a more rural later they got over 72. 00 and i suspect thats a fact and it was seen throughout that rule of 3 lanka will vote overwhelmingly for their side of the probably giving it a 2 thirds majority if you want to come to the Rural Electrification but of course our system is such that you would by district as it is still uncertain with it wouldnt do the majority ok so this is the much impact as looking to cement their political standing is that president doesnt buy one through event the 19th constitutional amendment what does he want more power for. One i dont really know of this lead but i think everyone is agreed that the 19th amendment of the 2. I managed to get someone who voted for it but i do have the distinction of being proposed 20 amendments to it which was shouted down because you know people are not looking at the principles i think its sensually you now have a di asking and the Supreme Court actually said you couldnt have a diety that didnt didnt let the president must be the leader of the country and the un be that some of the running to become a singer whos been smashed in this election the servant tried to smuggle in provisions to make him the equivalent of the of the president which led to chaos and i think the 5 years from 2015 to 2000 and of 2019 was such a mess you can see exactly why this i