13 Die During ‘Night of Terror’ in Beirut : Syrian, Christian Gunners Bombard City for 8 Hours

Syrian and Christian gunners pounded Beirut today with an estimated 50,000 shells and rockets, killing at least 13 people in what police called “Beirut’s night of terror and horror.”

A police spokesman said 65 people were wounded in the eight-hour bombardment, which he called the heaviest shelling in the four-month standoff between Gen. Michel Aoun’s mainly Christian troops and the Syrian army.

“We’re being killed in our beds. . . . Beirut is being massacred, and no one in the Arab world or the outside world seems to care,” said an announcer on the Christian Voice of Lebanon radio, his voice choking with emotion.

Wide Area Hit

Almost every part of Beirut and Jounieh were hit “as if by a killer earthquake,” a police spokesman said. “It was Beirut’s night of horror and terror.”

A rocket crashed into the top floor of the seven-story building that houses the offices of the Associated Press and CBS and NBC television networks.

“The explosion blew me out of my bed. I found myself flat on the floor with glass shards showering me,” said Associated Press correspondent Farouk Nassar, who lives on the sixth floor of the building.

The blast shattered windows and sent pieces of furniture tumbling into the street.

Screams for help echoed from nearby apartment buildings.

“His leg is chopped off!” one woman shouted as she guided civil defense rescuers to the second floor of another building struck by a rocket.

Dozens of stretchers with screaming wounded crowded the emergency ward of American University Hospital.

The U.N. headquarters in West Beirut and the Soviet Embassy compound also took direct hits, but no casualties were reported among their staffs, police said.

Shells tore wide holes in scores of high-rise apartment buildings, and hundreds of stores and boutiques had their iron shutters blown off.

Appeal by Red Cross

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Beirut appealed “for an immediate cessation of indiscriminate bombardment.”

The casualties raised the overall toll to 494 killed and 2,014 injured since the latest round in the 14-year civil war fighting erupted March 8.

A police spokesman said the heavy shelling started around 8 p.m. when Syrian gunners in West Beirut and north Lebanon hit Jounieh, East Beirut and the Christian port of Byblos. Aoun’s troops and the Lebanese Forces, the main Christian militia, retaliated with howitzer fire in West Beirut. The shelling tapered off around 4 a.m.