Explosion In Beirut.
The explosion was like 15 years of war in 15 seconds, says Lebanon's team at the United Nations, comparing its impact to the devastation from the country's civil war that lasted from 1975 to 1990. Now, amid financial meltdown and political turmoil, Lebanon has to undertake a single recovery effort of unprecedented scale. The level of destruction is hard to believe and it is everywhere. At the port, the grain silo that stored much of the country's wheat supplies is a tomb-like wreck rising from vaporised remains of the docks. Where people worked unloading ships there is now a flooded crater more than 40m (130ft) deep. Among the dead there were at least 43 Syrian workers, according to embassy officials. The homes and savings of many refugee families who lived in nearby industrial neighbourhoods have been destroyed. At least 100 people were killed and nearly 4,000 injured in a massive explosion of Beirut. The explosion, according to the Lebanon government...