“We are witnessing a real catastrophe,” Prime Minister Hassan Diab said appealing for international aid and promising a full investigation.
By Adela Suliman NBC
A huge rescue operation and an international aid effort got underway Wednesday, less than 24 hours after much of Beirut was buried by rubble and choked by smoke in a colossal explosion Tuesday afternoon.
At least 100 people have been killed and 4,000 injured, the secretary-general of the Lebanese Red Cross, George Kettana, told LBCI, a local broadcaster on Wednesday. Those figures look set to rise with hospitals overwhelmed and victims still trapped underneath debris.
“There is no word to describe the horror of the catastrophe that occurred in Beirut yesterday,” Lebanese President Michel Aoun said during an emergency cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the Lebanese News Agency reported.
“I extend my heart and feelings to the families…and I ask God to heal the wounded, heal the broken hearts, and provide us with all the energy and determination to stand together to confront the painful burns that have scarred the face of Beirut.”
Aoun thanked emergency workers and officials and vowed to conduct a full investigation into the cause of the deadly blast, which is still not clear.
The governor of Beirut, Marwan Abboud, also said on Wednesday the cost of the damage to the capital, already under economic pressure, could be between $3 billion and $5 billion, adding that the explosion had made at least 200,000 people homeless.
Many in Lebanon’s capital saw their apartments destroyed and family members injured, with daylight revealing scenes of destruction not witnessed in the country since its devastating civil war, which ended in 1990. Read more from NBC
