Beirut car bomb blast kills eight and injures more than 78 Scene of the car bomb blast in Beirut that killed eight and injured at least 78 others. Photograph: Nabil Mounzer/EPA As many as eight people have been killed and more than 78 injured after a rush-hour car bomb tore through a middle-class, largely Christian district of Beirut in the deadliest attack in the Lebanese capital for years. The motive behind the bombing was not immediately clear. The blast damaged buildings in a six-block radius and was audible across a large part of the city, sending up a pall of black smoke above the skyline. In the blast's immediate aftermath the Lebanese Red Cross and civil defence officials released conflicting totals for the number killed. The bomb, which struck a city that has become increasingly tense owing to the frictions of the civil war in neighbouring Syria, hit the affluent Achrafieh district. According to Lebanese army examinations, quoted by the Lebanese Daily Star, the car was rigged with 30kg of TNT, with the sheer force of the explosion throwing the vehicle's engine into the air. Nearby buildings were also heavily damaged. As the scale of the bombing became clear, local hospitals appealed for blood donors. Emergency workers ferried the scores of injured to hospital, in some cases by motorbike. The blast occurred duing rush hour, when many parents were picking up children from school. It was in the same street as the office of the anti-Damascus Christian Phalange party, near Sassine Square. The Phalange leader, Sami al-Gemayel, a staunch opponent of Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, and a member of parliament, condemned the attack. Let the state protect the citizens. We will not accept any procrastination in this matter, we cannot continue like that. We have been warning for a year. Enough," said Gemayel, whose brother was assassinated in November 2006. The Bemo bank, which is part owned by the Assad regime, was also damaged. Some Christian politicians were quick to blame the Damascus regime for the blast, saying the Achrafieh district, rather than any specific building, was the target. The possibility that the bombing is related to the fallout from Syria comes amid rising tension in Lebanon. Shia fighters with the Hezbollah group have been fighting on Assad's side, while Syrian rebels have used Lebanon to supply forces fighting the Syrian regime. The war in Syria has pitted mostly Sunni insurgents against Assad, who is from the Alawite sect linked to Shia Islam. Tension between Sunnis and Shias has been simmering in Lebanon ever since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war and have reignited amid the Syria conflict. Tensions peaked when Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, a Sunni, was killed in 2005. His supporters accused Syria and then Hezbollah of killing him, a charge both deny. An international tribunal accused several Hezbollah members of involvement in the murder. The group's political opponents, who have for months accused it of aiding Assad's forces, have warned that its involvement in Syria could reignite sectarian tension in Lebanon. The last bombing in Beirut occured in 2008 when three people were killed in an explosion which damaged a US diplomatic car. However, fighting had broken out this year between pro- and anti-Assad factions in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.