let's go live now to journalist rania colonic rania is in beirut thanks very much for taking the time to speak to us today iranian things seem to be snowballing in beirut despite ministers resigning on the promise of an early election what exactly do you think the crowds out there want. well just to clarify i was in beirut until yesterday i know in washington d.c. but right now you have a few different things taking place there's a a lot of anger obviously in the street over the explosion which is the fault of you know extreme incompetence and negligence by a governor extremely corrupt government. and so there's a lot of righteous anger in the streets of people who are angry they lost their anger they lost their homes angry this happened on top of everything else it's been deteriorating in the country and there's also you know some attempts of which always happens in the aftermath of any sort of crisis in lebanon to manipulate. for political gain by different political factions so there are certain political factions who have people the streets trying to make it about his vote as oppo

environment minister has also quit stating he has lost hope in the quote sterile regime journalist rania colic earlier told my colleague you know neal the protesters want someone to be held accountable for the tragedy. a lot of righteous anger in the streets of people who are angry they lost their anger they lost their homes angry this happened on top of everything else it's been deteriorating in the country and there's also you know some attempts to manipulate for political gain by different political factions so there are certain political factions who have people the streets trying to make it about his vote as opposed to about the entire lebanese power structure and any course you have people who were demonstrating starting in october jus to the economic collapse who have continued those of inspirations in the aftermath of this and what we're seeing is you know i some of the most violent confrontations between security forces and protesters in recent memory most people believe it was an accident due to corruption and negligence and competence which seems to be the case as for who's to

capital which is really really sad to be honest we discussed the situation in beirut with journalist rania colleague and human rights lawyer denk of alec. with the ground shaking turned into all the windows kind of blowing at the same time some sort of pressure and explosion it's like nothing i've ever experienced and since then you know i've been around the city and everything i mean no building is left untouched the level of devastation is shocking it's the best i can come up with and shocking and this comes on top of a already very severe economic collapse that's been taking place in lebanon over the past year and it's got gotten worse because of the coronavirus pandemic there's a sort of like misery in the air because of the economic decline because of the pandemic and tonight i mean the looks on people's faces there are just a new level of tired i can't even describe to you like everybody's homes are damaged right now the rich and the poor 11 on spin experiencing some of their worst economic crisis in a year or so much in this state are major port just there could be action to the wor

people the environment minister has also quit saying he has lost hope in the quote regime journalist rania kohak told me people are looking for someone to blame for the trench a. lot of righteous anger in the streets of people who are angry they lost their anger they lost their homes angry this happened on top of everything else it's been deteriorating in the country and there's also you know some attempts to manipulate the political game by different political factions so there are certain political factions who have people the streets trying to make it about his body as opposed to about the entire lebanese power structure and any course you have people who were demonstrating starting in october jude to the economic collapse who have continued those demonstrations in the aftermath of this and what we're seeing is you know i some of the most violent confrontation. between security forces and protesters in recent memory there's going to be extreme shortages in lebanon which is a country dependent on imports where it's there's already a dollar shortage there's already an economic collapse th

environment minister has also quit stating that he's lost hope in the quote sterile regime journalist rania colleague earlier told my colleague you know neal that protesters want someone to be held accountable for the tragedy. a lot of righteous anger in the streets of people who are angry they lost their anger they lost their homes angry this happened on top of everything else it's been deteriorating in the country and there's also you know some attempts to manipulate it for political gain by different political factions so there are certain political factions who have people the streets trying to make it about his boat as opposed to about the entire lebanese power structure and any course you have people who were demonstrating starting in october jus to the economic collapse who have continued those administrations in the aftermath of this and what we're seeing is you know i some of the most violent confrontations between security forces and protesters in recent memory most people believe it was an accident due to corruption and negligence and competence which seems to be the case as for

environment minister has also quit stating that he has lost hope and he quote stero regime journalist rania colic earlier told the union o'neil my colleague that the protesters want someone to be held accountable for the tragedy. a lot of righteous anger in the streets of people who are angry they lost their anger they lost their homes angry this happened on top of everything else it's been deteriorating in the country and there's also you know some attempts to manipulate for political gain by different political factions so there are certain political factions who have people the streets trying to make it about his boat as opposed to about the entire lebanese power structure and any course you have people who were demonstrating starting in october jus to the economic collapse who have continued those of inspirations in the aftermath of this and what we're seeing is you know i some of the most violent confrontations between security forces and protesters in recent memory most people believe it was an accidental due to corruption and negligence and competence which seems to be the case as fo

people the environment minister has also quit so he has lost hope in the quote stero regime journalist rania colic earlier told you know neal my colleague that the protesters want someone to be held accountable for the tragedy. a lot of righteous anger in the streets of people who are angry they lost their anger they lost their homes angry this happened on top of everything else it's been deteriorating in the country and there's also you know some attempts to manipulate for political gain by different political factions so there are certain political factions who have people the streets trying to make it about his ball as opposed to about the entire lebanese power structure and any course you have people who were demonstrating starting in october jus to the economic collapse who have continued those of inspirations in the aftermath of this and what we're seeing is you know i some of the most violent confrontations between security forces and protesters in recent memory most people believe it was an accident due to corruption and negligence and competence which seems to be the case as for who

we can cross live to beirut now and speak to rania abboud who works at a shop that was badly hit by the explosion. thanks hit by the explosion. so much forjoining us. we we re thanks so much forjoining us. we were hearing from tom about people out on the streets sweeping up. have you been trying to rescue people, trying to clear up the wreckage of your shop? clearing the wreckage is a big job. we started by doing the basics just to recover our colleagues' belongings, phones, car keys, etc. but thejob is tremendous and it is going to take a long time. so me and a lot of my friends and collea g u es so me and a lot of my friends and colleagues have been dividing our time between our space and our friends' spaces in the neighbourhood. obviously, this has been a very traumatic experience, even for those who have not got loved ones who are injured or killed in this disaster. how to use since the community is several days on now? are people beginning to recover psychologically? it will take a very long time. i know from my colleagues, we are a story of hope where 49 employees were at their de

correspondent paula slayer is a middle east correspondent for us and rania colleague is an independent journalist who was on the ground there in beirut when the blast occurred and that's where we're going to begin with ron yeah because she was there and she can share with us what's being felt there now and what it was like to be there when it happened runnion take it away. well to be there and happened it was extremely terrifying. like an earthquake and then the windows blew out and then there was a loud explosion and it was very frightening luckily i wasn't injured but a lot of people were i was at the hospital yesterday and it was just complete panic and chaos and people searching for their loved ones. every single building residential commercial restaurants shops hotels nothing was left on touched in beirut there's just broken windows and apartments everywhere it's completely devastating that the damage is widespread in a way like no one's ever seen. and today i mean today the cleanup began people started cleaning up of course there's theories about toxic fumes in the air but you kn

rania spoke to mom who's a professor of communications at the american unit university of beirut and a former candidate for the lebanese parliament he has more details on what led to the explosion. the material is stored it was in the hangar a number 12 which is one of the biggest and they store all flammable in that order material that is highly sensitive to explosions and otherwise and those who are stuck there by quote touring because they're not allowed to enter lebanon and they were basically trying to get them into lebanon using excuses off using them for fertilizers so that the ports so far saying and it seems that something terribly when drunk there and they were not stored properly there was a lot of flammables and and then there was a massive fire followed by intense 6 trillion which basically destroyed 2 to 30 kilometer radius of homes and houses around i was one of those who is missing or the glass and an entire entrance to a house because of the blast basically it's negligence you have got the customs department better sponsible for it and then you've got the ministry of