Japan's Icom said it was highly unlikely that wireless devices that exploded in Lebanon were the company's products. Pictures of the walkie-talkies used by Lebanese armed group Hezbollah that exploded on Wednesday showed labels reading "ICOM" and "made in Japan".

For millions of Lebanese, this week's mass explosion of pagers and walkie-talkies, with its bloody aftermath, is painfully similar to the horrific explosion four years ago of haphazardly stored ammonium nitrates that tore through Beirut's port,