Updating blasts’ casualties in Lebanon, nine dead

The casualty toll of Wednesday's wave of blasts in wireless communication devices reached nine deaths and 300 injury cases, the ministry of health reported. The emergency operations center of the department said in a statement that that medics whisked the dead bodies and the wounded to hospitals as civil defense teams doused fires triggered by explosions of walkie-talkies in various regions. According to the official National News Agency, three people died in such blasts in Sohmor, the Western Beqaa region, southeastern Beirut. The NNA said a number of walkie talkies blew up in the hands of their carriers and inside houses and cars, causing fires and setting a motorcycle alight in a town in the southern Tyre region. A number of injured people were hospitalized in southern suburbs if Beirut and the eastern ancient city of Baalbeck. These explosions happened a day after the country witnessed simultaneous blasts of beepers that killed 12 people and wounded around 2,800 others. Lebanese officials accused Isr ael of rigging the pagers before recent importation into the country and set them off with remote control high tech. Source: Kuwait News Agency