THIS is the terrifying moment a cargo ship erupts into a massive fireball in a Chinese port.
The eerie footage is similar to the mega blast that rocked Beirut, in 2020.
Footage of the explosion shows the fireball, followed by thick black smoke rising from the cargo ship, as debris was flung into the air.
Horrified bystanders watched the explosion from afar.
According to local authorities, no casualties or injuries have been reported.
The powerful explosion hit a container ship at around 1:40 pm on Friday at the Beilun Port area of Ningbo Zhoushan Port in Zhejiang Province of East China.
The explosion occurred on the bow of a container ship named YM Mobility, owned by Taiwanese-based company Yang Ming Marine Transport Corporation.
An investigation into the fireball is underway.
The clip shared on the Chinese social media platform Weibo has been watched hundreds of times.
One person wrote: “I am 1.2 miles from the explosion site.
“I can tell you on behalf of the locals that there are no casualties so far.”
Another commented: “Fortunately, there were no casualties! I can’t imagine if such a thing would happen while the ship was sailing!”
While a third added: “Fortunately, only the front part of the box was damaged.”
It comes four years after a similar ship blast killed more than 170 people and injured 5,000 more in Beirut on August 4.
The massive explosion was a fifth of the size of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb and destroyed the port it was docked in.
The blast tore the clothes from people’s bodies, ripped balconies from flats and hurled cars through the air as if they were toys.
The disaster was sparked when a welder ignited 2,750 tons of explosive chemicals in the port area, it’s reported.
The worker was trying to seal a hole to prevent theft from a warehouse, according to Lebanese TV station LBCI.
The resulting explosion hitting with the force of a 3.5-magnitude earthquake was the biggest ever seen in Beirut, a city blasted by a 1975-1990 civil war, bombarded in conflicts with Israel and hit by periodic terror attacks.
As many as 300,000 people were left homeless following the explosion which is estimated to have caused more than $3 billion worth of damage.
