Then, at 3.30pm local time on Tuesday, thousands of Gold Apollo-branded pagers exploded in Beirut, plunging the Lebanese capital into a panic, and sending hundreds of members of the powerful Lebanese militant group, Hizbollah, to overcrowded hospitals with mangled hands, facial injuries and worse.

Taiwanese company Gold Apollo says it authorized its brand on the pagers that exploded in Lebanon and Syria, but another company based in Budapest manufactured them.