Protest in Beirut amid anger over blast

Dozens are still missing after Tuesday's explosion at the port in the Lebanese capital that injured 5,000 people and left up to 250,000 without habitable homes.

Riot police were deployed at the small protest after some demonstrators burned objects and hurled rocks at security forces.

The government's failure to tackle a runaway budget, mounting debt and endemic corruption has prompted Western donors to demand reform. Gulf Arab states who once helped have balked at bailing out a nation they say is increasingly influenced by their rival Iran and

Hezbollah.

At the port, destroyed by Tuesday's giant mushroom cloud and fireball, families sought news of the missing, amid mounting anger at the authorities for allowing huge quantities of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, used in making fertilizers and bombs, to be stored there for

years in unsafe conditions.