From all over the buildings. Its not know what caused the blast at beiruts port, but windows were shattered across the city amid reports of many walking wounded. Also in the news today. Scientists warn the uk government needs to improve the test and trace system before schools re open or risk a second wave far greater than the first. Were lower than the world. Lower than the world . Lower than europe. In what . Take a look. President trump argues that america is handling the pandemic better than other countries, as the number of reported infections in america nearly 4. 8 million. Welcome. Were starting outside source with a developing story out of lebanon. These pictures are coming to us live from the capital beirut after a large explosion. The Health Minister says more than 50 people have been killed and more than 2,700 people are injured. As you can see, several fires are still burning, and efforts to bring them under control will continue into the night. Lets have a look at how this story has developed over the past few hours. These are the first videos that started circulating online. You can see smoke rising from the area. Soon after, a much bigger explosion that appeared to engulf several nearby buildings. This is from a different angle. It was felt across large parts of the city, shattering windows of surrounding buildings. Heres another angle filmed from the water you can see that huge plume of smoke. You see the initial fire and a far bigger explosion. You see the initial fire and a far bigger explosion. This is the immediate aftermath you can see upturned cars from the nearby highway, and there are fires and burned out buildings. Firefighters are tackling numerous fires. You can hear the emergency sirens here and if we go a bit closer, you can see people walking amongst the rubble. Looking for people who are caught up in this horror. Hospitals are said to be overwhelmed by casualties. This is what we do know. It happened near the port of beirut, an area which is mainly industrial. The explosion was felt 250 km away in the city of limassol and cyprus. This is from a journalist there. Its not yet clear what caused the explosion, which comes at a sensitive time for lebanon with the countrys economic collapse reigniting old tensions. The interior minister says preliminary information suggests that highly explosive material that had been seized years ago and stored at the port had blown up. The Prime Minister hassan diab has said that those responsible will pay the price. A day of National Mourning will be held on wednesday. Cyprus, france, the uk and iran are among the countries who have offered to help. Both with the efforts to rebuild the area but also to find out what has happened. The bbcs rami ruhayem says the force of the blast could be heard and felt kilometres away. I was maybe about ten km or more away from the suspected sight of whatever happened. And i heard something really huge, which i dont remember hearing before, a very loud noise. What i heard before that, ifelt the quake, before he heard ifelt the quake, before i heard any sound, i felt the ground shaking slightly beneath me. I thought this was a small earthquake and then i heard this massive massive blast. Massive, massive blast. Then immediately we started seeing videos sent from people then immediately we started seeing videos sent from people who are closer to the side of the explosion. They are very, very worried indeed. Hadi nasrallah was in a taxi near to the site of the explosion. Heres how he described it. I saw the fire but i didnt know there was going to be an explosion. We went inside, and suddenly i lost my hearing. Apparently i was too close. So i lost my hearing for a few seconds, i knew something was wrong, and suddenly the glassjust shattered all over the car, the cars around us, the stores, the buildings. Just glass going down all over the building. First impression, i thought it was an explosion. I instantly thought it was an assassination attack, because usually, it happens in that area. It was very scary, it was loud, it was very loud. But once i looked at the smoke, it wasnt dark and black as we usually witness, because i live in beiruts southern suburb and we had a wave of car bombs the past years. So looking at the smoke, i knew it was something else, not a car bomb necessarily. A little earlier, i spoke to the bbcs lina sinjab in beirut. Heres how she experienced todays events. Well, im not too far from the port. Just six or seven minutes drive, maybe less if there is no traffic. The first feeling i had, it was like an earthquake. I felt my body would collapse. Just moving like this, not like a normal earthquake. Just a few seconds after, there was this big explosion where all the doors in my apartment were open. Broken, but few down, oken, but few down, the n, but few down, then, but. Behind their windows were shattered. All their windows were shattered. Thats the story you keep hearing from many people who are close or even farfrom from many people who are close or even far from the explosion, depending on the force that affected them. This is something that ive never heard before. It immediately broke to my memory the explosion that happened in 2005 that killed the former Prime Minister. People described as the time on that same kind of volume. People across beirut heard the explosion and felt its effects in different ways and different levels. Immediately after that, we know the explosion took place. The government is saying this isa place. The government is saying this is a warehouse of fireworks, but actually, the massive volume of this explosion was really huge, was really worrying. The explosion comes as lebanon is facing a rise in coronavirus infections, with some lockdown restrictions in place to try and contain the outbreak. The country has recorded just over 5000 cases, and you can see from the graph here that the infections are on the rise. This shows the total deaths. The official death toll is at 65. Those numbers may not seem very high, but the rise in infections is already threatening to overwhelm the countrys critically underfunded healthca re system. Lebanons economic crisis is one of the worst in its history, and certainly since its civil war, which ended in 1990. The value of the currency has plummeted 80 over the past ten months. In a country where most consumer goods are imported, thats pushed prices up for people. An example of that is inflation in food prices. In may, they were up nearly 190 from the year before. And in march, the government defaulted on a 1. 2bn debt payment. Its in negotiations for a bailout from the International Monetary fund, but talks have stalled. Lets hearfrom kareem chehayeb, a writer for the public source website in beirut. A fifth of our population is living below the poverty line, and the currency has lost 80 of its value in less than a year. So on top of all of this, this kind of tension for this kind of security crisis thats happening in lebanon will prevent it to stable situation, which the government has unfortunately failed to contain at this time. Making all of these problems much harder to solve is lebanons deeply divided politics. The country recognises 18 religious communities four muslim, 12 christian, the druze sect and judaism. The three main political offices president , speaker of parliament and Prime Minister are divided among the three biggest communities. The seats in parliament are also divided evenly between christians and muslims and the including druze. And then, theres the role of militia groups, of which the iranian backed hezbollah is the largest. Last week, lebanons neighbour israel said it had thwarted an attempt by hezbollah to infiltrate israeli territory. But a senior israeli official has told the bbc that israel has no connection to the beirut blast. Analysts say one consequence of having so many large competing sectarian groups is corruption. Last year, lebanon ranked 137th out of 180 countries on transparency internationals Corruption Perceptions index. All this means governments come and go, and struggle to get things done. Next, heres ghada alsharif, a reporter at the daily star lebanon newspaper. It was a normal day, and then next thing i know, there was a shake. After the shake, there was an explosion. 0ur windows were blasted open. The apartment ceiling came down. Dust flew around the office. People went down on the ground immediately. A lot of our reporters have been there since the civil war, so have been there since the civil war, so they acted as though this was something theyd seen before. Yeah, for those of us who are new, we were pretty shaken. Im sure you were. The timing of this, while it may be coincidental with the hariri vertex coming on friday means this happened added the delicate little time. We cant really make that link at this time. I think people dont really, with the stl verdict coming out, people are just kind of waiting for it to come along. Right now, the main concern is the Economic Situation and the collapsing economy, also the overwhelmed health ca re system, economy, also the overwhelmed health care system, which is surely to be even further overwhelmed by the reported over 2500 injuries that are currently being attended to in the hospitals after this explosion. What do you and your colleagues hear about whats happening in the port area of the city in terms of the Emergency Services operation, fire operation thats going on at the moment . Its just operation thats going on at the moment . Itsjust all hands on deck right now. Video footage circulating shows complete destruction. Bodies under cars, theyre being lifted out of debris. Along residential areas in beirut, which are almost two km, three km away from the port. Theres glass all over the streets. I