Dr Marie Eid has told the BBC the hospital where she works in Beirut has been badly damaged, and that “it was a truly very, very traumatic experience.”
Hospital staff were forced to transform the car park into an emergency ward, as more and more injured people arrived for urgent treatment.
Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun said the blast was caused by 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored unsafely in a warehouse.
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. No recent population census has been conducted, but 2007 estimates ranged from slightly more than 1 million to 2.2 million as part of Greater Beirut, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region and the fifteenth-largest in the Arab world.
Lebanon, officially known as the Lebanese Republic, is a country in the Levant region of Western Asia, and the transcontinental region of the Middle East.
The official language, Arabic, is the most common language spoken by the citizens of Lebanon. Its capital is Beirut.
Lebanon was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and is a member of the Arab League (1945), the Non-Aligned Movement (1961), Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation (1969), and the Organisation internationale de la francophonie (1973).