Beirut’s Explosion Leaves a Crater That is 141 ft. Deep

The massive chemical blast that struck the port of Beirut, destroying major parts of the Lebanese capital and claiming more than 150 lives, has left a crater 43 meters (141 feet) deep, a security official reported on Sunday.

The tragic explosion has killed at least 6,000 people and displaced more than 300,000 from their homes which had been destroyed or damaged.

The crater is even bigger than the one created by the massive explosion in 2005 that killed the former minister Rafic Hariri, which was 10 meters long and two meters deep, according to an international tribunal reviewing his murder 

The explosion on Tuesday, which was felt throughout the county and as far as the island of Cyprus, was reported by the sensors of the American Institute of Geophysics (USGS) as having a magnitude 3.3 earthquake.

It was triggered by a fire in a port warehouse where, according to the authorities, a large shipment of hazardous ammonium nitrate, a chemical that could be used as a fertilizer or as an explosive, had lasted for years.

The revelation is that the chemicals had been like a ticking time-bomb in the heart of the capital for years has served as shocking proof of the rot at the core of the state apparatus to many Lebanese.