"Lucky to be alive": Australian in Beirut recounts moment of devastation
Lebanese rescue workers are continuing to search for survivors in the wreckage of buildings after an explosion at a port in Beirut killed at least 135 people and injured 5000 more.
Up to 250,000 have also been displaced, with no home to live in after the explosion shattered their windows and sent their buildings tumbling.
Samah Hadid from Australia is among those affected.
She’s been forced to evacuate her neighbourhood which sits “within the zone” - just one kilometre from the port.
Her apartment has been left “completely destroyed”, but authorities have also issued a warning about the toxic fumes circulating in the air, putting Samah’s health at risk too.
“I’m really lucky to be alive,” she told The Latest.
“The damage was so extensive that it ripped through the entire building and the apartment so I’m really lucky to escape injury.”
When the explosion occurred, Samah thought it was either a bomb or an earthquake as her building began to shake.
“The ceilings came down. Furniture just ripped apart,” she said.
Hadid escaped through the building’s stairwell but found “blood all over the staircase from people who were really severely injured”.
“The hospitals were so overwhelmed and overcrowded that they should not accept any more people,” she said.
“And this is happening in the middle of a pandemic where the health system here is already overstretched dealing with coronavirus and, to put it in perspective, Lebanon was already facing an economic crisis.
“People were already living in poverty.
“We’re already facing starvation, in my street alone, buildings have been destroyed, neighbourhoods have been ruined, brought to rubble.
“The country has been brought to its knees. It’s facing crisis upon crisis.
“It desperately needs support and needs international aid support, if people are going to be able to rebuild their lives.”
The death toll is expected to rise from the blast that officials believe is due to a large amount of highly explosive material stored for years in unsafe conditions at the port.
President Michel Aoun said 2,750 tonnes of seized ammonium nitrate, used in fertilisers and bombs, had been stored for six years at the port without safety measures.