Car Bomb Devastates Beirut Area : 15 Killed and 120 Injured as Fireball Roars Down Street

A car bomb exploded today, releasing a fireball that killed at least 15 people and injured more than 120, many seriously, as it rolled through a densely populated neighborhood of Christian East Beirut.

More than 25 apartments were gutted in an instant by the force of the blast, which reduced a seven-story building to a skeleton as a ball of fire barreled down the street, tearing into people and tossing cars into the air like cards.

Joseph Hashem, the Christian Cabinet minister for posts and telecommunications who headed the rescue operation, said search parties were finding dead and wounded under the blood-splattered rubble several hours after the blast.

“The blast totally devastated one building, destroyed several others and damaged many more,” Hashem told reporters, adding that many of the injured had been hospitalized in serious condition.

Army bomb experts said a Mercedes 280 sedan, packed with an estimated 330 pounds of TNT, blew up at 10:30 a.m. in the Sad al Bawshrieh neighborhood of East Beirut.

Police said at least 15 people were killed and more than 120 wounded by the bomb--the bloodiest in East Beirut since a similar explosion in the Sin El Fil neighborhood killed 55 people and injured 176 on May 22.

Rubble littered the streets, and many apartments, shops and cars were still on fire hours later. Black smoke billowed over the neighborhood and there was a three-foot deep crater where the bomb-packed car had been parked.

Bulldozers were called in to help rescue workers clear away the debris.

As casualties were taken to hospitals, Christian radio stations broadcast several appeals for blood donors.

“The situation is still too confused, and ambulances and rescue teams are rushing to the area now. It was a massive explosion and initial reports indicate that there are many casualties and damage is very extensive,” a police spokesman told the Christian Voice of Lebanon radio station.

“Let God kill whoever did this,” an official at the nearby St. Joseph Hospital said, his voice cracking with emotion.