Hundreds wounded as huge explosion rips through Lebanon’s Beirut

“It resembles to what happened in Japan, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That’s what [it] reminds me of. In my life, I haven’t seen destruction on this scale,” Abboud said.

The White House and U.S. State Department said they are monitoring the situation.

The cause of the blast was not immediately clear. It came at a time when Lebanon is passing through its worst economic and financial crisis in decades.

Online video showed a column of smoke rising from the port area from what appeared to be an initial explosion, followed by a massive blast that sent up a mushroom cloud and a shock wave racing over the city.

Some local TV stations reported the blast was at Beirut’s port inside an area where fireworks were stored.

“If it was fireworks, as some news sources are saying — they are some damn big fireworks,” said CNN’s Beirut correspondent Ben Wedeman. He said he “never felt anything like it … [I’ve] been around the block and seen pretty large explosions … and this was bigger.”

Washington Post Beirut bureau chief Liz Sly reported “bleeding people, wreckage piled all over.”

In late July, Israel said it thwarted an infiltration attempt from Lebanon by Hezbollah militants, setting off one of the heaviest exchanges of fire along the volatile Israel-Lebanon frontier since a 2006 war between the bitter enemies. Israel considers Hezbollah to be its most immediate threat.

A wounded man walks near the scene of an explosion in Beirut on August 4, 2020.