A Day of Catastrophe in Beirut: Chaos and Escape

A mangled yellow door. Shattered glass. Blood.

A devastating explosion of ammonium nitrate stored at the port in Beirut killed at least 135 people and razed entire neighborhoods on Tuesday. This is what our correspondent in the Lebanese capital saw when the blast turned her apartment “into a demolition site” — and what happened in the hours after.

Guest: Vivian Yee, our correspondent based in Beirut. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily

Background reading:

• As the shock of the blast turns to anger in Lebanon, this is what we know so far about the explosion.
• In a land conditioned by calamity, Vivian wrote about what it felt like to emerge from the debris into the kindness of strangers and friends.

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