The freeman foundation. Pursuing solutions for americas neglected needs. And by contributions to this pbs station from viewers ou. Thank you. Welcome to outside source. Massive explosionsocked the lebanese capital, beirut. At least 30 people have been killed. I lost my hearing for a few seconds. I knew something was wrong. Glass was shattered all around us, going down all over the budings. We dont know what caused the explosion. Windows were shattered across the city. We will also cover, the nk. Governmentds to improve their testing soltem before screopen or face a second wave far greater than the first. We are lor than the world, lower than europ take a look. President trump is arguing america is handling the pandemic better than other countries,s the numberamf infected in ica nears 4. 8 million. Welcome to the program. We are starting outside source with the ongoing storyn beirut. These are pictures coming live to us after an explosion rocked the city. More than 30 people have been killed. More than 3000 people have been injured. Several fires are still burning. Efforts e going to carry on through the ght to bring them under control. Lets walk you through how the story is developed has developed over the last few hours. These videos started circulating online. Yocan see smoke rising from the area soon after a much have engulfed several nearby buildings. Here it is from a different angle. Another angle filmed from the water. You can again see the huge plume of smoke. Upturned cars, and fires andh. Burnedout buiings all around. Firefighters quickly arrived to tackle numerous fires thatere burning. Emergency sirens continue into the night. You can see people walking amongst the rubble, searching fo injured people. Hospitals are said to be overwhelmed by casualties. Lets go through what we know what we know has happened here. This happened in the board of beirut there are reports it could have been a fireworks accident. A journalist, saying more than 250 kilometers away from beirut, we felt to blasts two blasts. We thought it was an earthquake, but only our windows were shaking. E it comes at a sensitme for lebanon, the countrys economic eicollapse hasited political tensions. The ime minister has a cleared a day of national mourning. The inteal security chief is saying the explosion happened in an area housing highly explosive materials, but added that investigations should not be preemptive. Already, france, the u. K. , and iran have offered help in the investigatns. Lets bring in our colleague, who said the blast could be ard and felt commenters away. I am 10 kilometers or more away from the suspected site of whatever happened. I heard something really huge, which i dont remember hearing before. A really large noise. Ibefore thaelt a quick, before a quake, before i heard any sound, i felt the ground shaking beneath me. Then i heard this massive blast. Immediately, we started seeing videos sent from people who e closer to thee s this explosion. They are very wary and, indeed. Heas in a taxi near to the site of the explosion. Here is how he describes it. It is an area by thticoast. I can see what is goi on. I saw the fire, but i did not yet know there was going to be an explosion. We went inside. Suddenly, i lost my hearing. I was two i lost my hearing for a few second i knew somethingas wrong. Suddenly, the glassful shattered all over the car, the buildings. Just last going down from all over the buildings. First impression, i thought it was an explosion. I instantly thought it was anss asation attack, because usually, it happens in that area. It was loud. It was very loud. But once i looked at the smoke, it was not dark and black as we usually witness. I live in the suburbs. We had wave of car bombs the last years. Kelooking at the smoi know it was something else, not a car bomb, necessarily. Ets get more from beirut. From where you are in the city, how did you experience the explosion . Well, i am not too far from the port. Just six or seve minutes drive , if theres no traffic. It wasn like arthquake. But not like a normal earthquake. A few seconds after, there was this big expsion, where all the doors in my apartment were forced open. Luckily, nothing was broken. Few meters down, the building behind me, all the windows were shattered. That is the story you keep hearinwhfrom many people are close or even far from the explosion, depending on the force that affected them. This is something i have never heard before, but it immediately brought to my memory thsi exp that killed the former prime minister. People described it as the same kind of volume. People acr beiru heard the explosion and felt it in dierent ways and levels. Immediately after that, we kneto the explosio place at the port. The government is saying this is a warehouse of fireworksbut actually the massive foy huge, really worryon was really this is a country that has been in turmoil and has bad memories of assassinations an wars. A civil war here. Time of tension and a time of economy clapse and the spread of the coronavirus, keeping the health sysm on alert. Now they have to tend to the situation, as well. Help us learn more about the board of beirut. Fort of beirut the port of beirut. What are those bui . Rea. This is mainly an industrial area. At the port there. Ps that arrive there are lots of shipments that are loaded and uploaded there. It ion a highway that the whole city passes through. Behind it, it is a very condensed area wit passersby, opening up after almost a week of t lockdown because ofhe spread of coronavirus. So the city was very busy. At this time of the day, 6 00, when the explosion took place, it is the peak time of people going out of work and going up to the mountain, going to the beach, going in different directions. The port is on this highway that is usually very bus obviously, the situation is going be very worrying for many people who pass by. As we hear the reports, the minister of health has said at least 2500 were injured. Up until now, the ambulances and the red cross and the medical system is helping to rescue people a lot of the rubble. It is a devastating situation for many people. Many thanks. Best wishes to you. This explosion comes as lebanon is facing a rise in coronavirus cases, with lockdown distraction restrictions to tryn the out with lockdown restrictions to try and contain the outbreak. The official death toll is 65. E numbers may not think high, but lebanon is also facing economic catastrophe. The rise oy threatening to overwhelm the Country Health care system. The value of the currency 10ummeted 80 over the pas months. Thats pushed prices up for people. An example is inflation and food prices. Rl they were up n 190 from the year before in may. In march, the government defaulted on a 1. 2 billion debt repayment. It is in negotiations for a bailout from the International Monetary fund. Those talks have stalled. Lets hear from a writer for the public source website in beirut. Any are living above the poverty line. On top of allhis, this time of tension and security crisis banon will prevent a stable situation. The government which the government has failed to maintain. An ls deeply divided political scene the country recognizes 14 political offices and religions, dediamong the three biggest communities. Ats in parliament are also vided between christians and muslims and people from other communities. Then there is the role of militia groups. The largest. Lebanons neighboed israel, thwan attempt from hezbollah did for trait to infiltrate israeli teitory. One coequence of having so many groups as corruption. Lebanon ranked 137th out of 180 s countr transparency. Which means governments tend to come and go in lyanon. When t come, they struggle to get things done. Joining me from beirut is a reporter at the daily star lebanon andewaper star lebanon newspaper. Lets talk about your experience city. Did you hear the blast your experience today. Did you hear the blessed . Did you hear the blast . It was a normal day, then there was shake, then there was r explosion. Ndows were blessed open were blasted open. The ceilings came down. People went on the ground immediately. A lot of our reporters had been there since the civil war, so they acted as though it was something they had seen before. We were pretty shaken. Im sure you were. The timing of this, while it may coincidental, with the verdicts coming on friday, it happened at a sensitive time. You cant really make that link at this time. i think people t really, with the stl verdict coming up, peop are waiting for friday to come along, but right now, the main concern is Economic Situation and the collapsing economy. Care system, which is shortly to be even further overwhelmed by the reported over 2500 injuries that are currently being tended to when the hospitals after this explosion. What are you and your colleaguesearing about what is happening in the porta a the city in terms of the Emergency Services operation, the fire operation going on at the moment . It is all hands on deck right now. Video footage circulating is showing complete destruction. Bodies under cars, they are beingte ld out of debris, along residential areas in beut, which are almost three kilometers away fromort, electricity. Y black out theres glass all over the streets. I went back to my apartment. Its completely destroyed. In the port, you can imagine the level of destruction there. We have seen some International Media reports saying lebanon is very close to being on its knees. The different elents of the is under pressure, beyond anything its exarrienced for is that a fair description of what is happening . Bsolutely. The economyas w teetering on the break of collapse for months. It was exacerbnaed by the corus lockdown measures that happened at around march, which st down businesses, hospitality industries, and in the last year, t currency has depreciated by 80 in value. So, you can imagine what this is what uncertainty is doing toba further exac the situation. Poverty is skyrocketing its expected to rise. People are expected 60 of the population is expected to fall below the poverty line according to the economy ministrys estimates by the end of the year. We appreciate you joining us on outside source. Thank you for your time. A journalist in beirut. We wish her and her colleagues well. Stay with me on outside source. Scientists are warning the u. K. Government it needs to improve its testing and tracing system before schools open in september, or risk a second wavh is far greater than the first. Tens of millions of people around the philippine capital are being instructed to stay at home after a jump in coronavirus cases. Shops have been ordered to close and public transport has been halted. We havert more. Re the latest restrictions currently in place r two weeks were introduced after dozens of medical as Health Care System would collapse if infections continued to rise. Certainly calls f concern. More than 6000 new cases were reported on tuesday. The biggest daily rise so far. Following almost a week of record numbers. Ae measures mean people w not essential workers will now only be allowed out to buyor vil goxercise. Public transport has been stopped. Domeste flights hen grounded theory the restrictions are currently in place until august 18th. Wi doctors hope i give medical workers the timed a need to deal with the spike in cases. Katharine armstrong, b news. The biggest stories from around the world, from here in the bbnews that is our lead story. A massive explosion h rocked the lebaneseapital, beirut. At least 30 people have been killed. The World Health Organization is urging russia to follow the established guidelines for producing safe and effective vaccines, following announcement that it plans to start mass vaccination against the virus in october. You are in england, scientists are warning there could be a second wave of the coronavirus, twice as bad as the first one unless the government significantly improves tciting and t systems by september. Whic is one schools reopen. They have used computer models to see how the disease might spread as people return to the classroom and parents go back to work. The worst Case Scenario is that by december, there could be a resurgence 2. 3 times higher than the first wave of covid19. Here is our editor. Rerter blackburn with dain, the area with the highest number of virus cases relative to the local population. They have launched their own skin, with efforts to trace context of those who have been infected. Scheme, with efforts to trace contacts of those who have been fected. We call you, send you cny mail, if w get through to you, we knock on your door to ask for contact detai. Reporter tod, a group of academics had to reach more people to avoid another spike in trace to get to a level where we canvoid a second epidemic wave. Reporter people testing positive are ask for recent contacts, who were then told to 98 percent of contacts wereer reached in nor ireland. In wales, 83 . In england, 75 were reached. There were no comp sable figures tland. With complex cases in england, 95 of contacts were reached. With no complex cases involving individuals, 61 were contacted. Some who make the calls, contact tracers, are telling us anonymously they are not given enough to do. I have spoken to eight people , a couple of them have beeve people that lready been called seven or eight times because of other family members that have been involved. Others are people who actually want nothing to do with the syst. I dont thk its working at all. Reporter boosting the number of walkin Testing Centers like thisd one in englan held by ministers as an example of their commitment to making the system more accessible. But testing is one thing. Getting to the close contacts of the infected is another challenge altogether. The executive running the National Scheme dorended its pence after todays criticism. I absolutely dontccept the failure. Its the opposite. What it isoing is allowing us to identify areas where the virus is spreading more freely. Where we do need to take targeted local election. That is exactly what you have seen. A port the u. K. Was late to Start Building udespread network. Germany already had a testingac and g system in place when the virus struck. One reason why case numbers and deaths have been lower than in many other countries. Theres a chance you have s some of president trumps interview with axois. With axios. Perhaps the most iortant of them is the president claiming that america iandoing better he world on coronavirusn yimerous categories, then to explain how. In this tweet, there are several others, too, all show the president spking to axios on hbo. Take a look. But stick a look at these charts. lettake a look at these charts. I would love to. Well, right here, the United States is lowest inumerous categories. Lower than the world. Rld. Lower than europe. In what . Take a look. Right here. Heres case death. You are doing debts. Im talking as a proportion of population. That is why the u. S. Is that. Much worse than south korea. You cant do that. You have to go by you have to go by look you have to go by the cases. Donald trump says the world is lower the u. S. Is lower than the world. The Johns HopkinsCoronavirus Resource Center in the u. S. There are five countries with the highest number of confirmed cases. The. S. Is far above the other four. This is the number of deaths in the worst hit countries. This shows the top five when we look at the number of new daily confirmed cases over the past week. The u. S. Is just below india. That raw data does not take into account population size, we heard being discussed. This shows the number of deaths per 100,000 people. The u. K. Is top of that list. The u. S. Is fourth. Many consider this to be the single most helpful guide in assessing the impact othe virus in countries. The president was focused on the mortality rate, compared to the number of confirmed cases. The u. K. Is on the top, america is 14th. Not top of the list, but certainly not lower than the world, as the president how ma times have you watched that, anthony . Reporter probably about a dozen times. It was a pretty remarkabwa interview thhe kept getting pushed by jonathan swanf and not lethe hook in some of the other interviews. I think that was a difference in style. Jothan swann has been in america r a while, but he is an australian journalist. He brought a slight slack of difference to the president that we dont see in interviews. There was an interview on fox a couple of weeks ago where he told the president he was run about some of the folks he was starting. Ma that was also et change on the ierview sonitrol normal participates in. He is usually in these capoliyoriented talk shows where he gets mostly softball questions. I think that is not unusual for a president to get kind of insulated for criticism, the longer they are in office. It happened with barack obama, ronald reagan, bill clinton. All of a sudden, they are confronted by an opponent with harder questioning. I just think it eating played out now it being played out now in a bigger way with donald trump and the little earlier in the debate. A little earlier in the debate. What would you pick out as being the most significant t element interview . I think it is just that. It is not just that donald trump has this wrong information or is focusing on the wrong statistics, it appears tm be handed to his own administration officials. He is not being challenged by his advisers. He is being given positive information and given the best spin on things. Perhaps donald does not have inaccute view of t breadth of the virus in the United States. That is leading m to draw the wrong conclusions and perhaps the wrong policy prescriptions. Anthony, thank you very much. You can easilyle find the wf the interview online should you want to watch it. See you soon. Bye, bye. 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