A huge blast ripped through Beirut's Verdun district at 10:50 p.m. Monday, damaging several apartments and storefronts. TV footage showed at least one wounded elderly man and two injured children carried away by rescuers and placed in ambulances.
Police said at least 10 people were wounded.
The explosion went off near the Dunes Center on Verdun's main thoroughfare.
Thick clouds of black smoke billowed from the scene of the blast as firefighters battled to put out the fires.
Future TV said the blast, not very far from House Speaker Nabih Berri's mansion, was likely caused by a car bomb. LBC, however, said the bomb was planted underneath a black car.
On Sunday, a woman died when an explosive device planted under a parked car detonated by a popular shopping mall in the mainly Christian east of the capital. At least 10 people were wounded by flying glass.
Meanwhile, Fighting between Lebanese forces and fighters with links to al Qaeda at the Nahr el-Bared camp, on the outskirts of the northern port city of Tripoli, quieted after nightfall amid attempts by other Palestinian factions to broker a cease-fire. The representative of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, Abu Ahmed Rifai, said Fatah Islam men pledged to cease firing and withdraw from positions facing Lebanese troops. According to the AP, a senior officer at Lebanese army command would not say a cease-fire was reached but repeated the military's stance that it will not shoot if it does not come under fire.
