The Lebanon office of Aircompany Armenia, the only Armenian airline that has an office in the country, has suffered heavy damage following Tuesday’s powerful explosion in the port of Beirut. Gevorg Khachatryan, Deputy Director of Armenia airline, informed Armenian News-NEWS.am about this.

In a conversation with Armenian News-NEWS.am, Nazo Der Sarkissian, an employee of Aircompany Armenia’s office in Lebanon, said that fortunately no one was in the office at the time of the explosion. "The windows of the office were completely shattered, the property was damaged," Der Sarkissian added, in particular.

The Armenian Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia in Antelias also suffered great material damage as a result of the blast. In a conversation with Armenian News-NEWS.am, Rev. Fr. Bedros Manuelian, Pontifical Vicar of the Armenian Prelacy of Kuwait, said that none of the clergymen in the Catholicosate were injured, as they were outside at that moment.

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Dashnaktsutyun Party institutions in Beirut also were not spared from this explosion.

According to preliminary data, five Armenians were killed in the blast: Nazar Najarian, the Armenian secretary-general of Lebanon's Kataeb political party; Armenian nurse Jessica Bezjian, who was at her hospital workplace at the time of the explosion; Jacques Paramakian; Delia Papazian; and Varoujan Tossounian.

Three days of mourning have been declared in Lebanon as of Wednesday, and Beirut has been declared a disaster zone.