Over a hundred volunteers clear up Gemmayze neighbourhood

Over a hundred volunteers from different local charities and ad hoc community groups have thronged the streets of Beirut's Gemmayze neighbourhood, MEE correspondent Kareem Chehayeb reports.

Carrying spades and wearing hard hats, they cleared broken glass and piles of debris off the streets, while others distributed water and food to the volunteers.

A handful of municipality workers were there as well. "We're heading to a demolished hospital a few blocks away," one of the volunteers told MEE. "We all connected with each other on Facebook."

You could almost see the Beirut Port from the volunteers' destination -  Sisters of the Rosary Hospital. Dozens of people had already started to clear rubble in that hospital, which is one of several medical facilities in Beirut now out of commission following the explosion.