BEIRUT (Xinhua) – At least one person was killed and seven others were wounded in an explosion in southern Lebanon early on Tuesday, the Lebanese National News Agency reported.
The explosion rocked a scout center in the town of Benafoul, destroying a municipal council building and damaging other buildings nearby.
Preliminary information revealed that the explosion was caused by oxygen flasks that caught fire due to electric friction. The oxygen flasks were stored in the scout center for coronavirus patients.
The injured had been transferred to hospitals, and the Lebanese Civil Defense continued searching among the rubble for further casualties.
Arabic-language Lebanon 24 news website said the blast caused serious material damage and that the details of what happened are not clear yet.
Lebanon’s newspaper an-Nahar reported that the explosion occurred near the Bnaafoul’s municipality building and caused great panic in the area.
Lebanese users of Twitter shared footage of ambulances in Bnaafoul, in addition to scenes they said were for the moment the explosion occurred in the town.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the incident.
More than 200 people were killed and about 6,500 wounded in the explosion at Beirut’s port in 2020, when a huge stockpile of ammonium nitrate, which had been stored unsafely at the port for years, detonated.
The explosion has left Lebanon’s economy — already reeling from multiple crises, including the breakdown of its banking system, spiraling inflation and the coronavirus pandemic — in tatters.
Western meddling and U.S. sanctions have worsened Lebanon’s deteriorating financial and political crisis.