BEIRUT: Emergency medical aid and pop-up field hospitals were dispatched to Lebanon Wednesday along with rescue experts and tracking dogs, as the world reached out to the victims of the explosion that devastated Beirut.
Lebanese rescue workers searched for survivors in the mangled wreckage of buildings and investigators blamed negligence for a massive warehouse explosion that sent a devastating blast wave across Beirut, killing at least 135 people.
Around 5,000 people were injured in Tuesday's explosion at Beirut port and up to 250,000 were left without homes fit to live in after shockwaves smashed building facades, sucked furniture out into streets and shattered windows miles inland.
The death toll was expected to rise from a blast that officials blamed on a huge stockpile of highly explosive material stored for years in unsafe conditions at the port.
Gulf states were among the first to respond, with Qatar sending mobile hospitals to ease pressure on Lebanon's medical system, already strained by the coronavirus pandemic.
A Qatari air force plane with a cargo of hundreds of collapsible beds, generators and burn sheets touched down in Beirut in the first of a convoy of flights to the Mediterranean country.
Medical supplies from Kuwait also arrived, as the Lebanese Red Cross said more than 4,000 people were being treated for injuries after the explosion, which sent glass shards and debris flying.
A Greek C-130 army transport plane bearing a dozen rescuers landed at Beirut's airport, itself damaged in the catastrophic explosion.
Lebanon's Prime Minister Hassan Diab has called on "friendly countries" to support a nation already reeling from its worst economic crisis in decades as well as the impact of the coronavirus.
President Emmanuel Macron is to travel to Lebanon on Thursday, becoming the first world leader to visit Beirut after the disaster, as France seeks to swiftly push reconstruction in its former colony.
"France is at the side of Lebanon. Always," Macron tweeted in Arabic.
Cyprus - which lies just 150 miles (240 kilometres) to the northwest and where Tuesday's blast were both heard and sighted - said it was sending eight police tracking dogs and their handlers aboard two helicopters, to help in the search for victims trapped under rubble.
Tunisia offered to send medical teams to collect 100 wounded people and evacuate them for treatment, as well as sending in two military transporters carrying food and medical aid.
From Europe, authorities in the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Poland offered an array of assistance including doctors, police and firefighters, together with rescue experts and sniffer dogs.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said Tehran stood "ready to offer medical and medicinal aid and help treat the injured", and Jordan's King Abdullah II also promised to dispatch a field hospital.
The United Arab Emirates sent 30 tonnes of medicines, medical supplies and surgical equipment.
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