Beirut blast aftermath resembles Lebanon civil war: MSF chief

Doctors Without Borders, known as MSF, has likened the humanitarian fallout of the recent massive explosion in Beirut to that of Lebanon's civil war, which lasted for 15 years.

"We lived difficult and similar experiences during the Lebanese war," MSF president Mego Terzian said on Thursday of the country's 1975-90 civil war.

Bombings of petrol warehouses near the port had yielded "similar scenes -- the city was completely devastated, people were wandering the streets, wounded, desperate, without knowing where to go," he said.

"Lebanese healthcare workers, especially those with experience of the civil war, were able to triage the emergency rooms very quickly and prioritize those patients who had to go to the operating rooms."

Terzian pointed out that warehouses storing medicines and vaccines in the port of Beirut were damaged in Tuesday's monster blast.

He went on to say that after the initial rush to treat the injured, the next priority would be to provide food and shelter to the destitute.

Still, hospitals that were quickly overrun on Tuesday, with overflowing emergency rooms, had a handle on the situation by Wednesday with many injured transferred outside Beirut, Terzian added.

Terzian also said some regional countries were sending field hospitals, and attempts were being made to guarantee supplies of basic medicines such as antibiotics, painkillers and blood bags.

The provisional death toll from Beirut’s massive blast stood at 137 on Thursday, with dozens missing and 5,000 wounded. The number of victims is expected to rise as search and rescue operations continue for people listed missing under the rubble in areas near the port.

Beirut Governor Marwan Abboud estimated up to 300,000 people may have been made temporarily homeless by the explosion, and damage from the disaster would cost the debt-ridden country billions of dollars.

SS