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Public anger has mounted in Beirut against the ruling elite that is being blamed for the chronic mismanagement and carelessness that led to the disaster. 
There were signs the outrage went beyond port officials to Lebanon’s long-entrenched ruling class. 
The investigation into the blast is focusing on how more than two thousand tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive chemical, came to be stored at the port for six years, and why nothing was done about it.
“Beirut as we know it is gone and people won’t be able to rebuild their lives,” said Amy, a woman who swept glass from a small alley.
She blamed officials for lack of responsibility and “stupidity.””May the Virgin Mary destroy them and their families,” Joseph Qiyameh, a 79-year-old grocery store owner, said of the leadership.
The blast damaged his store, his wife was hospitalised with injuries she suffered at home next door, and his arm was hurt. 
Chadia Elmeouchi Noun, a Beirut resident currently in hospital, told the BBC: “I’ve known all the time that we are led by incompetent people, incompetent government […] But I tell you something – what they have done now is absolutely criminal.”
Fueling speculation that negligence was to blame for the accident, an official letter circulating online showed the head of the customs department had warned repeatedly over the years that the huge stockpile of ammonium nitrate stored in the port was a danger and had asked judicial officials for a ruling on a way to remove it.
Additional reporting by Associated Press