Beirut explosion: Anger grows and protests break out - BBC News
Rescue and clean up operations are under way, as residents blame government negligence for the blast.
Beirut resident Rayane Awkal has told the BBC she was meeting a friend in a coffee shop in the Gemmazye area when the blast happened.

She said the sound was like that of a plane and then "everything was shattered, there was glass on the floor".

“All of a sudden my friend started screaming 'My leg, my leg!' And I look down and I see her leg split near her knee and bleeding."

Rayane said they somehow managed to go to a nearby hospital where they saw many injured people.

"There was blood everywhere, and we were told they weren’t admitting anyone."

Three hospitals refused to treat her friend but eventually she "got stitched" in a hospital outside the capital.

"I’m very fortunate that miraculously I got out safe, my parents are safe," Rayane said.

But she added: "I’m very angry as a citizen because I feel nobody is listening to us.

"We are just fed lies after lies by this corrupted system, by corrupted politicians who are just trying to buy time to try to get themselves out of this mess.

"Because it is their mess, their lies and blood is on their hands – everyone who has died, everyone who got injured, every last - business, every last house - it’s on them because of their mismanagement and because of everything they have done wrong.”