Basically a new. Ballistic missiles of their house and the red smoke is actually fuel now thats one way of d looking at it then you go to the social media in beirut and you see that of those polls by American University of Beirut Medical Center which is the most important medical facility in the. Country and in the middle east which says everybody in lebanon needs to stay indoors from the look of the flame the explosion looks the night of it asset based stay at home and then you go into the Medical Center and they tell you that its actually not that opposed the same think about Canadian Embassy canadian embassies doing headcounts of their stuff but then there are fake oboes from the Canadian Embassy which were obviously not posted by them because says that its a drop the bomb with depleted uranium red color. All your loved ones together they dont inhale tried to go opposite direction of where so there is this kind of things which cannot be confirmed in the meantime of course the government is trying to put this finger on the who. Who exactly is this sponsible but though this moment its very difficult to include all. The sides we get into that in just a moment andrea but but as you say youre exactly right we are trying to verify and news footage that we can speak about that weve seen directly and what we did see was that just before the blast antigovernment protesters were clashing with Security Forces outside i believe it was the Energy Ministry as youve gone through theres been severe on rest of the countries on the brink economically and this could this tragedy be a tipping point. Yes i was covering it for a warning time of year its incredible d a collapse of the company so electric facility the room is actually facing a crisis in terms of water supply for the city of garbage collection the infrastructure everything but i do not really think that the magnitude of the blast i mean look 20 kilometer survey from the boards when this happens the been those and glass panels for the shadow the International Airport the for a figure 8 of this or most explosions so this would have to be planned its not the clashes of the protesters yes of course there is a frustration there is tension and of that is very often go plantation between d all Major Political players in the middle but i do not believe that the. Explosion of this magnitude or explosions of this magnitude could actually of be caused by a group of protesters well yet we should point out that lebanons internal security chief said the blast happened in an area explosive materials there will be a lot of people under a wolf theyre hoping that this was just a terrible accident very much that this is the case. And let me just the whole also a lot of fire on the border things which again i will suborning for years. Living on is a. Big number of groups of totally different interests political groups religious groups are concentrated in one small space there are there was a big presence of the terrorist organisations ations it was kind of the Michigan Group the involvement of has been law and. Lebanese Security Forces but. All these groups from veterans groups from the middle east i call them doormen cells everywhere i dont know what theyre going through we dont of goldman theyre going to resign a system like in the past they did but it was the. Least expected so anything could happen if there is always this easy piece there is still plenty of players involved the west is involved the u. S. Is involved. But also different political interests sunni islam. That is has a lot of interests functionally actually is a very even bordered social. Support organism for the company but that is also. Not going to say should be to syria going to. Be you know always ready to fight against any israeli involvement in the company so its incredibly complex situation all these. Decades as a lot of just just to point out of course as you know under a lot of a lot of the other side about people are saying that. You know youre dealing with a lot of militant groups you know that could be allied d to the state as well you know thats the opposing point of view forth. Another aspect is that this comes just days before the verdict is due to be announced in the murder trial of former Prime Minister rafik hariri thats something as well that that thats going to cause you know i lot of consternation if not further protest after what were seeing. Yes for people of our standing trial actually on friday the censure and on friday the should be a verdict its a u. N. Quarter. They should decide actually or they should. Condemn but not condemn this for people from hezbollah but you know knowing her. And there is no interest in causing such incredible. Albor uproar and destroying the city basically. Is governing always in lebanon it is not an organization that its not a. Group that would be fighting for busy 4 or attention. Basically are in sight of the governing body to some the some extent and if it similarly does which i dont think its the middle d it would be totally come to the productive youve youve worked in the area in beirut i think he said as well i think theres talk yes. Its just its such a perfect storm right now isnt it andrea when youve got the covert situation youve got those who are going through the different factions supporting they need a Prime Minister on the opposite side of that youve got what occurred today the hospitals are going to be overwhelmed law and order was already on the brink its going to be very very difficult for even rescue teams to do their work isnt it today. Yes of course. Lebanon is civil to sometimes call all sarcastic. Capitalist company there is almost nothing social there left its all privatized its controlled by the way in that is this royal private interests thats why i said hezbollah is the only actually social. Kind of Security System or organization for all liberties so basically as it is even before it was even before the explosion of hospitals for over about you know majority of schools are only for the who are private schools even Public Schools the hospitals medical facilities the same so eager for medical shortages dont you they are already rife will in lebanon even be able to help those injured today. Thats what i mean its going to be extremely difficult everything is a lobster you know the local currency collapse people dont have money they cannot be dole money. From the banks literally for months because that the. Lebanese currency globs against the dollar and banks do not allow people to be grow. Anything from their accounts so if youre going to be able to go to private hospitals they will probably have little money to. Live a normal is extremely expensive going through them so i dont know what its going to be extremely tough difficult for people to go through describes this because the red cross is already was already talking about 1200 injured now its going to 2000 close to 3000. 00 actual dollars going to yes its basically every 10 minutes there were 50 minutes oh if you look at the magnitude of the explosion its like a major earthquake its going to be odense of thousands injured hundreds of people the so i mean i see now images from all parts of beirut and it really looks like after the earthquake or after all the way from the border area to the. International airport which i said is silly some. Other people even just just all not just to get your knowledge of the area because you did work there for 5 years the ports is in the north youve got the airport basically what 1015 kilometers in the site this city city is the Cross Section in the middle so you have the blast obviously affecting a very dense area of the city center where there are markets are can you tell us what else is a ride in that area that could be affected. I imagine a lot of mosques as well a busy highway. Yes and also a lot of better houses also for d there is a storage area where this took place but there is every think in the radius of 2 kilometers yes. d the downtown. Area the poor there is armenian neighborhoods. Not far away which is a very poor and very densely populated so. There is just a huge concentration of the population of beirut is not very big city. 700000 inhabitants but. This very densely populated this. d of by far the largest city in lebanon the capital of course and you have all sorts of. There is a big big disparities between the rich and poor and in that particular area you have both you know you you have not far of. Which is artistic neighborhood so its where the. Filmmakers are also the same mention the meaning of neighborhoods which is again some 2 kilometers maximum from the explosion probably not even so its and then theres the storage area of it belongs to the huge amount of people this is of course working they dont live there but they work so the many of them lost their lives and yeah just finishing their working day probably around 66 pm when this happened. Our guest will check philosopher and investigative journalist we have to point out that some of us dont always chime with those of our team but we do appreciate coming on to the program and sharing them with us thanks andrea thank you so much great pleasure. Youre watching r. T. International ok lets recap what we have been speaking about it is or so will story today on the program a devastating explosion thats hit lebanons capital beirut government officials are saying at least 50 people are dead and more than 2500 have some estimates saying up to 3000 and thats been going back and forth in fact over the last 20 minutes or so theyre now saying 2500 people injured but you know when we see the pictures a lot more are expected the bus that went off was just saying in the citys poor teria destroying buildings within a large radius the colds so far clear its believed to have set off fuel tanks causing a 2nd blast and a huge fire. Well these are some of the images that weve got in the immediate aftermath of run 2 or 3 kilometers away from the ports in central route weve been speaking to some of the people who witnessed it 1st on the whole of the way excuse me hes a freelance journalist in the lebanese capital he described to us what he saw. In the pump last to stop and i hate to break down completely so its logical to take it down. The road so i made it up the road its taken its a good amount of people been injured. Down suited me she happened to build the infrastructure and the whole area devastated. Shops around here been completely destroyed you see behind me you know ill tell you that in terms of the problems is that the mispricing riot infrastructure. Up to it was very much a strain from the ongoing and epidemic condemning this country the area that im in. Taking a lot of the images out. Of the right its been easy its very very nicely and perhaps even very very 1045 here in moscow the same time in routes lets get a recap of what happened in the lebanese capital close to 5 hours ago and our powerful explosion has shaken the city leaving many killed or injured just the the numbers were hearing reports saying that the death toll is now a top 50 people some 2500 people injured. The Lebanese Army has taken control of all districts near the port area just in the north of the city where this blast happened quite extraordinary photos every time you see this footage is that the interior minister said the cause of the explosion is so far on the lebanons internal security chief said it happened in the area housing highly explosive materials. And chemicals well both israel and the Lebanese Militant Group hezbollah have denied any involvement there were earlier reports weve been going through with her guests why they may have been fingered why they may have been blamed will be showing at pieces of video breaking this hour and in the hours to come we know that the explosion was portably followed by a 2nd when a fuel pool caught fire leading to a muscle on the pictures that youre seeing here some people have described as a. Blast that was so powerful so large that Mushroom Cloud going up hundreds of meters in the sky at the blast destroyed buildings we know that the blast was put out you can see here just absolute devastation in the in the area the shock waves in fact felt as far away as cyprus 240 kilometers away videos posted online of showing a massive smoke dust cloud covering central beirut cars overturned streets blocked by rubble hospitals as well reportedly full just absolutely chockablock because the had been dealing of course with cruel a virus patients on this the exact numbers in the hospital of being dealt with are not the norm but the casualties perhaps even the Fatality List is expected to rise in the coming hours this all comes by the way of a time of deep political unrest in lebannon there have been constant street rallies for the past number of weeks against the governments humbling of the worst economic slump since the civil war which ended 3 decades ago so a lot of ramifications a lot of theories. Not a lot of exactitude us to water occurred we here on our to international are getting as much information as we possibly can from correspondents nearby from local journalists there as well we will of course bring them to you on the program youre watching our to International Life from moscow on our ongoing breaking news from the lebanese capital beirut. Is youll be via reflection of reality. In a world transformed. What will make you feel safe. Isolation community. Are you going the right way or are you being so. Direct. What is true what is. In the world corrupted you need to descend. To join us in the depths. Or a mate in the shallowness. All across the board trying to sit down in the polls and not just by a pointer to traditionally incumbency alone is enough to win the election but this time around it is a race trumped me and lets be clear this is little to do with joe biden how did we get. Join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and ill be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business im show business ill see you then. God. Why. You can be bold with the yeah you like. My. Youre back with our all going coverage of developments in the lebanese capital beirut which has left many dead after a huge explosion rocked the city lets cross. To our middle east correspondent paul its leader to tell us more about what occurred was around 5 hours ago and paula in the capital the pictures quite extraordinary im sure were going to be seeing more as youre speaking just taking us through it but it was a devastating explosion many did many injured in the lebanese capital. Yes it certainly is the biggest tragedy that weve seen in terms of a blast in may have been on the biggest lost in lebanons history and this is a country thats had its fair share of loss people are talking about the disaster area and the scale of the damage which is enormous the sound of the beirut explosion was heard as far away as cyprus which is some 234 kilometers seismologists also say it was at a 4. 5 magnitude now the latest is that weve heard from the Prime Minister vowing revenge but just against whom he plans to take advantage is not yet clear weve had both israel and hezbollah deny any kind of involvement and that was the speculation in terms of who could have been involved in fact the israelis have officially offered their assistance to 3rd parties at the same time jordan is saving a plane to assist this comes as we hear from the Health Ministry the figures keep fluctuating and the latest weve heard is that 50 people how now confirmed dead and 2500 injured that were hearing about critical patients in the hospitals were hearing about doctors having to tend to people in outside hospitals in motor cars on the on the pavement. So the hospitals on chaos and not coping at all with the amount of injured people in fact people are being turned away there is still no confirmation as to what caused the blasts and we are hearing from the interior ministry saying to avoid speculation that its necessary to wait for an official investigation to be conducted but some of the thoughts being put forward are that the 1st explosion was caused by an electrical spark and we heard earlier from the lebanese customs director saying that it was caused by nitrates that were inside a warehouse where highly explosive materials are housed the idea there was that those initial explosions may have saved or fuel tanks which would have caused a 2nd explosion because i witnessed this report hearing explosions 2 massive explosions in the vicinity of the port of beirut i would missis talk about seen a Mushroom Cloud glass everywhere buildings completely destroyed in fact some of the eyewitnesses weve been talking to talk about it resembling. So now were waiting for some more information to come through in terms of who was responsible whats was responsible and also that final count in terms of casualties but that might take some time we understand that emergency workers are still struggling to get to people who are trapped beneath the buildings and the Emergency Services will continue to work in the coming hours throughout the early hours of the morning no doubt just while we view some of the initial reaction from locals on the ground you know they looked in disbelief at such a huge explosion. Some of the viewpoints we heard that when you look at the reasons being given fireworks mixed with electrical spark mixed with chemicals its very hard to believe they say that it would lead to such a massive explosion maybe that would always be the reaction in the aftermath of. Something like this but it does come during an escalation between israel and hezbollah although both have denied any involvement maybe you could give us some of the geopolitical context in the region. While in the last few days we have witnessed an increase in tensions along israels northern border with lebanon and that has been an increase in tensions between israel and hezbollah there was an incident of his beloved firing into israeli territory the israelis responding leave responding and that is why the speculation is that perhaps this is an attack that was carried out by israel but it seems to have happened in a residential area which would seem to go against an israeli strike again all of this is speculation and thats all we have at this moment is speculation but the indication of a way house housing explosives seems to sound familiar with what israeli targets have been in the process which is why possibly some people are pointing fingers at the israelis again let me let me point also that the official response from israel has been to offer assistance so you need to ask the question as to whether or not israel would have conducted a strike and then covered it up by offering assistance i mean all of that remains open and again the official word from israel is that they were not involved in terms of his below were talking about a very politically active component of the Lebanese Society some speculation that hizbullah might have carried it out theres been a lot of political turmoil in lebanon particularly in recent months i mean it gave all of that is coupled with an economic crisis and the cover 19 crisis record comes at a particularly bad time not that it would ever come out not at Something Like this could come at a good time but it is a particularly bad time for living on that struggling to deal with a whole host of problems and a whole host of of disarray that it has on the. Thanks for taking us through all the. Middle east correspondent paula slayer live in tel aviv thank you. All right so were going to a short break here on r. T. International just coming up to 57 minutes past 10 pm we will be back in very shortly with her one story our breaking news from the lebanese capital muss of explosion the aftermath and all that coming up the reaction as well. We go to work you straight home for. Something seems wrong. Just dont. Get to shame how these things become educated and indeed equals betrayal. When so many find themselves worlds apart. She still looks for common ground. I know team no crowd. No shots. Actually felt. Well strap no arrests. Points your thirst for action. How can you explain love ive been to 82 countries i did in 12 but i came here and on those 3 days i just felt it hopes to cover all of it. And he kept pretty isnt it sick show. I made my decision to come here because i felt and you i could build a new life series the. Companys name was. I was a free man but i think god decided that this money is no good to be free while prostyle it if a little. Kid gets you here i was aware my one dream is that all my children d find the same kind of happiness i do. I love my home here i love cold weather i like the culture i like the history i like everything about it almost. And i know that. I am a russian fama. The world is driven by a dream shaped by one person with those great. Thinks. We dare to ask. Our breaking news on our see a devastating explosion hits the lebanese capital beirut leaving buildings in rubble and causing a huge fire the cause is so far. At least 50 people are killed in the blast according to the lebanese Health Ministry 2700 more are injured. Israel denies any involvement in the deadly blast after initial reports the countrys president has expressed condolences to the people of lebanon and has offered emergency medical assistance