The death toll from Tuesday’s massive explosion in Beirut has risen to 137, with some 5,000 wounded and tens still missing, Lebanon’s health minister said Wednesday. Officials said the death toll was expected to rise.
The country’s prime minister Hassan Diab has declared three days of mourning from Thursday. The government has vowed to hold those responsible for the explosion to account.
The explosion was the most powerful ever suffered by Beirut, a city still scarred by civil war three decades ago. The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear, but Lebanon’s internal security chief said the site of the blast in the port area of the city was housing highly explosive materials.
Up to a quarter of a million people were left without homes fit to live in, officials said.
Several countries dispatched emergency aid to the country on Wednesday.
Qatar sent mobile hospitals, generators and burn sheets, while Algeria will send planes and a ship with humanitarian aid, medical teams and firefighters. The World Health Organization has pledged to send trauma and surgical kits from Dubai.
Germany has sent search and rescue specialists to find survivors trapped beneath rubble. Its embassy building, located not far from the port, was damaged and staff were wounded in the explosion.
France’s president Emmanuel Macron is set to visit Lebanon on Thursday. He will go directly to the port and meet Lebanese and French teams, after which he will head to the presidential palace for meetings with top officials.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said on Wednesday that the United States has not totally ruled out that the explosion was an attack.
