The massive blast at Beirut port on August 4 caused more than $15 billion in damages, President Michel Aoun said Wednesday.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Wednesday announced that the LF’s 15 lawmakers will not resign from parliament without their allies in al-Mustaqbal Movement and the Progressive Socialist Party.

“Any resignations that would not lead to toppling the current legislature would be a lost effort. If we do such a move, we would be strengthening the current ruling authority instead of weakening it,” Geagea said at a press conference.

Germany stands ready to help Lebanon with reconstruction and further investment after last week's massive explosion, but any support will be linked to economic reforms and an end to pervasive corruption in Lebanon, Germany's foreign minister said Wednesday.

Heiko Maas spoke after a tour of Beirut's devastated port, where thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate exploded Aug. 4, obliterating the facility, killing at least 171 people and wounding thousands in the capital city.

Caretaker Minister of Economy and Trade Raoul Neheme said Wednesday that Lebanon has wheat reserves sufficient for four months after the massive port explosion that damaged the country’s only large grain silos.

The massive Beirut explosion revived a US legislation bill aimed to impose sanctions on Lebanese officials on charges of “corruption, ties to Hizbullah and violations of human rights,” the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat reported on Wednesday.

For months, US lawmakers and officials have been preparing draft laws and proposals to impose sanctions on Lebanese officials and political bodies because of their direct links with Hizbulah, classified as a terrorist organization in the United States, said the daily.

The U.N. Security Council remains at odds over the way the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon operates on the ground, with the United States backing Israel's demands for major changes.

At a closed council meeting Tuesday on the mission known as UNIFIL, whose mandate is up for renewal at the end of the month, U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft stressed the need for a new mandate.

Just days after the enormous blast that shattered Beirut, Ali Hammoud found himself looking down on the rubble from an airplane window, leaving behind his family and hometown.

About four years before the Beirut port explosion that killed dozens of people and injured thousands, a U.S. government contractor expressed concern to a Lebanese port official about unsafe storage there of the volatile chemicals that fueled last week's devastating blast, American officials said Tuesday.

There is no indication the contractor communicated his concerns to anyone in the U.S. government.

Tanya can't be alone in a room. Carla, for days, thought a war was starting. Survivors of Beirut's August 4 blast are still in shock over a disaster that disfigured their city.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat on Tuesday called for forming an “emergency government” and noted that he does not have a favorite candidate for the PM post at the moment.

“Things require the formation of a government, call it what you want, that would first address the economic situation and Beirut’s reconstruction, and before anything else, reform,” Jumblat said after meeting Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain el-Tineh.