Moroccan BBC Journalist Caught on Camera During Beirut Blast

6 August 2020 – bySylvanus@Bladi · 1 min read

As she was interviewing Faisal Al-Seel, project manager of the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy, in a live broadcast, Moroccan journalist Maryam Toumi of BBC was thrown to the ground during the explosion that shook the Lebanese capital Beirut on Tuesday.

In a video posted on Instagram, we can see the walls of the journalist’s office suddenly shaking during the interview. Maryam Toumi loses her balance and falls. Including her camera. She starts screaming. Her interlocutor shows the scene to a colleague.

A few seconds later, the journalist manages to get up. "An explosion in Lebanon!" she exclaims. Subsequently, Maryam Toumi shared a video on YouTube to reassure her family and friends that she was fine and that nothing bad had happened to her.

"I wanted to share this video to tell the people who tried to contact me, my family and my friends, hamdoullah that I’m fine. No matter the bruises I have on the front and on the shoulder," she says. This BBC correspondent miraculously survived the explosion. She says her office was destroyed. The journalist deplores what happened. She is currently receiving the necessary care.

On Tuesday, two powerful explosions occurred in the port sector of the Lebanese capital Beirut. According to the Lebanese Minister of Health, Hamad Hassan, the toll is 4,000 injured and 113 dead.