The death toll from the horrific blast that shook the Lebanese capital Beirut at 6pm on August 4 has risen to at least 78, with nearly 4,000 others injured. Lebanese authorities blamed a shipment of ammonium nitrate in a warehouse in 2013 for an explosion.
The Lebanese Defense Council declared the port area in the capital a "disaster zone".
It is unacceptable that a shipment of ammonium nitrate estimated at 2,750 tons has existed for 6 years in a warehouse without precautions, endangering the safety of people, USA Today quoted Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab as saying.
It is not yet clear what caused the chemical attack. Although authorities initially assessed the deadly blast as a tragic accident, intelligence sources told Fox News that they did not rule out the dirty act - ammonium nitrate, used as fertilizer - used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
It seems that the explosion in Lebanon is not the result of a military attack, but rather an accident, said Jonathan Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of the Organization for Defense Democracy.
However, ongoing tensions suggest that future explosions could be the result of something more intentional, Schzerzerzer said. These tensions also come at a particularly bad time for Lebanon.
The blast came three days before a UN court would issue a verdict in the trial of four suspects of the Shiite group Hezbollah in the 2005 bombing that killed former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and 21 others.
Mr Hariri was killed by a giant truck bomb at the same location, about 2 km from the port where the explosion occurred.
Israeli officials said Israel, which has fought Lebanon many times, had no involvement in the blast on August 4 and said it was ready for humanitarian and medical assistance. Western countries including the US, UK and France have also said they are ready to support.
The catastrophic explosion risks leading to a new humanitarian crisis in a country with hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and is currently struggling with an economic crisis with one of the world's largest debts.
