Eyewitness: Panic and chaos as civilians rush to flee border regions on deadliest day since 1990
By Alex Crawford, special correspondent, in Sidon
Lebanon has endured a terrifying day with 80,000 people receiving Israeli phone messages telling civilians to leave their homes, two Israeli airstrikes in the capital and hundreds more in southern towns which continued through the night,
It’s Lebanon’s worst day of deaths in conflict since the end of its civil war in 1990, with children, women and paramedics among more than 490 people killed in Israeli strikes on southern communities.
The main coastal road linking the south to the capital Beirut is gridlocked, with several kilometres of vehicles trying to flee north.
Some of the cars around the city of Sidon have been stuck in jams and barely moved for six hours.
It took us five hours to travel 9km – usually a 15-minute journey.
One airstrike landed 200m away from our van as well as the heavily-congested road packed with hundreds of other vehicles crowded with families.
There were several secondary explosions after the strike in an industrial area in the town of Ghaziyeh near Sidon.
This seemed to indicate the airstrike had hit a munitions store or other explosives.
A plain-clothed armed man shouted at us to leave the area and cocked his gun to hurry us along. He did not identify himself.
The day-long spray of Israeli airstrikes which is still continuing into the night has caused panic and chaos with drivers blocking both sides of the coastal road as mayhem ensued.
The Lebanese ministry of health said the death toll from the airstrikes in the south is now 492. More than 1,600 have been wounded.
Alex Crawford reports from Sidon, Lebanon with cameraman Jake Britton, specialist producer Chris Cunningham, and Lebanon producers Jihad Jineid, Sami Zein and Hwaida Saad