Lebanon: Moment of Beirut blast sweeps away bride posing for wedding photos

Beirut, Lebanon: Eyewitness video shows a bride posing for photographs on her wedding day in Beirut on Tuesday, August 4, just before the massive warehouse explosion happens that killed at least 100 people and injured nearly 4,000.

As bride Dr Israa Seblani stands smiling in a square close to the couple's wedding venue Le Gray Hotel in downtown Beirut, with her bouquet placed on the bottom of her veil, the wedding videographer's camera pans down to it. The explosion can be heard and the bouquet and the bottom of her dress are are blown away in the aftermath that sees damage to buildings and smoke in the street. The bride is quickly led away towards a building.

Officials said the toll was expected to rise after Tuesday's blast at port warehouses that stored highly explosive material. The blast was the most powerful ever to rip through Beirut, a city still scarred by civil war three decades ago and reeling from economic meltdown and a surge in the coronavirus infections.