How much worse can things get for Lebanon?

Just before Twitter started firing out messages about a ‘bomb’ in Beirut, our cleaner rang us in tears, shaking, telling us our house had been damaged by an explosion. Video from her phone showed our windows blown out and splintered furniture. There was debris in the street and wrecked cars at odd angles. A man grabbed the phone from her to say there were injured everywhere, too many to count. Our house is in the Christian neighbourhood of Gemmayze, near the EU ambassador’s residence, and also close to a building belonging to the political party of a Christian militia leader. Automatically, I wondered if either of those could have been the target. Then we got a call from a friend in Monot, half a mile to the north. Her flat had been destroyed, she said. Then we got a message from someone else, half a mile in another direction. They, too, had felt the effects.