A professor at the American University in Beirut, Nasser Yassin, described hearing a “missile” or “jet” type sound in the seconds leading up to the massive explosion that’s rocked Beirut, Lebanon.
Transcript:
YASSIN: “... really, really, very, very, very, massive. I haven’t seen this. I lived in the Civil War in Lebanon, Israeli invasion, the Rafic Hariri assassination but this is I think the biggest explosion that happened in Lebanon after my experience or knowledge. I was outside Beirut, not far from Beirut but over looking it, and as we were shaken and actually we’ve heard seconds before some kind of an air jet, or a sound of a missile if I can say. I can’t — I’m not an expert in [indecipherable]. We’ve heard for a couple of seconds something like a sound and then was there was the bomb. And from the images at the scene, the damages are huge in the port area. I think the whole port might have been all, you know, demolished altogether. The radius of — of the explosion by talking to relatives, glasses were broken and the radius of 20 kilometers from the port area. So, don’t understand yet, we don’t know yet what happened, but this is going to be huge in Beirut. And — and we — we just pray that not many casualties will be lost.”
FINIGHAN: “Nasser, I don’t know whether you’re able to see local TV pictures at all, but there’s a scene of complete devastation at the port area itself. I’m intrigued by —“
YASSIN: “Yeah.”
FINIGHAN: “— by this noise you described a few moments ago, before the actual blast itself. Anchal Vohra — we were speaking to our colleague Anchal Vohra a few moments ago and she described hearing a similar thing. She said it started almost like a jet.”
YASSIN: “Yeah. Absolutely. I mean it sounded like a jet, or a sound of a missile, you know moving, wheezing in couple of seconds and then we heard the bomb. And we’re like — we’re like 40 kilometers or 35 kilometers from Beirut, overlooking Beirut, and we heard this very clear. So I think we need to wait and see the investigation about this. But it doesn’t look like this
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