Beirut explosion hurls BBC journalist across room during live interview (video)

A video shows the moment a BBC journalist was thrown across a room during an interview as a huge explosion rocked Lebanon’s capital city Beirut.

In the clip from the interview, BBC News Arabic journalist Maryam Toumi is seen speaking to her interviewee, Faisal Al-Aseel, project manager at the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy.

During the interview, Maryam Toumi hears a loud thud and she stops speaking for a second and looks around. Suddenly, a deafening shockwave tears through her building and knocks her to the ground.

The camera appears to be on the floor and debris flies around the room, while Maryam Toumi screams in the background and an alarm starts ringing.

Looking shocked, Mr Al-Aseel and another woman watch as the journalist manages to straighten her camera and pull herself back onto her feet.

The deadly blast that occurred on Tuesday, August 4, led to the death of more than 100 people and injured more than 4,000.

It is thought to have been caused by a welder who triggered a spark that caused tons of chemicals stored in a nearby warehouse to explode.

Below is a video showing the blast hurl the BBC journalist across a room.

The shocking moment the Beirut explosion happened was caught on camera by Maryam Toumi, a journalist for @BBCArabic who was conducting a video interview at the time.

Warning – distressing images. pic.twitter.com/ljhtDAT7wk

— BBC News Press Team (@BBCNewsPR) August 5, 2020