The blast reportedly targeted a car used by a senior police official on a street in Hazmieh, on the Christian eastern edge of the capital. Television footage showed black smoke and flames rising from the street. A body sat slumped in a delivery truck that was caught up in the explosion, eyewitnesses said. Body parts were reportedly strewn on the road.

Thick black smoke curled into the sky as ambulances rushed to the scene, an area of office buildings and parking lots on a highway leading out of Beirut. Cars in one parking lot were set ablaze and badly damaged by the force of the blast, reporters said.

Christian areas in Lebanon have been hit by several bomb blasts and attacks in recent months and years, several of them blamed on Syria, which has denied responsibility for the violence. Friday's blast came some 10 days after a car bomb damaged an American diplomatic car in the Lebanese capital, killing three people and wounding 16, French News Agency AFP said. 

MORE BLASTS

Last month a car bomb killed the army's chief of operations, Brigadier-General Francois Haj, in east Beirut. Lebanon has suffered at least 30 bombings in the last three years, many hitting anti-Syrian politicians and journalists. Bombers have also targeted United Nations peacekeepers in the south.

It was not clear immediately who was responsible for the latest attack. Observers say Lebanon's stability has been underming by growing tensions between Muslims and Christians as well as a revolt by al Qaeda-inspired Islamist militants, last year. 

In addittion, Lebanon is experiencing political tensions with a long-running political conflict pitting the Western-backed ruling coalition against the Hezbollah-led opposition.