The World Health Organization is scrambling to deploy $1.7 million worth of personal protective equipment to Beirut after 17 containers filled with supplies for the COVID-19 response were destroyed in this week's massive explosion.

Saudi Arabia has sent two planes to Lebanon carrying more than 120 tons of medicine, medical devices, emergency supplies, tents, shelter kits and food items for people in Beirut affected by the massive explosion this week.

The massive explosion and devastation triggered by thousands of tons of chemicals improperly stored in Beirut's port is the culmination of decades of corruption that has driven one of the Middle East's most spirited countries to ruin.

The staggering destruction, with losses in the billions of dollars, will compound Lebanon's multiple humanitarian catastrophes. Its people are seething with rage as they are pushed into even more poverty and despair by an accident that appears to have been completely avoidable.

When Boris Prokoshev, a former sea captain spending his retirement years in a Russian village, woke up and found an email saying a ship he once commanded had carried the ammonium nitrate that blew up swathes of Beirut, he was astonished.

China says it is sending a medical team and supplies to Lebanon in the aftermath of the port explosion that injured more than 5,000 people.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Thursday that Chinese leader Xi Jinping had conveyed a message of condolence to Lebanese President Michel Aoun following the blast, which killed at least 135 people.

The Australian government has pledged an initial 2 million Australian dollars ($1.4 million) to the relief effort in Lebanon following the deadly blast that ripped across the capital Beirut.

The staggering videos from the Lebanese capital are grimly familiar to Tommy Muska thousands of miles away in Texas: a towering blast, a thundering explosion and shock waves demolishing buildings with horrifying speed.

It is what the mayor of West, Texas, lived seven years ago when one of the deadliest fertilizer plant explosions in U.S. history partly leveled his rural town. On Wednesday, Muska also couldn't shake a familiar feeling — that yet again, no lessons will be learned.

As black smoke billowed into the sky, Shiva Karout stepped out of his gym with his colleagues and customers to watch. His gym, Barbell House, sits just across the coastal highway from Beirut's port where a fire raged. They were curious.

Then a first boom shook them, and curiosity turned to fear realizing how close they were. "We got a bit scared, and we all went back in," Karout recounted. Tense moments passed, waiting inside, and one of his customers panicked and ran out. Karout went after him.

Britain is promising a 5-million-pound ($6.6 million) humanitarian support package for Lebanon following Tuesday's devastating explosion in Beirut.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Wednesday that search and rescue teams and expert medical support are ready to be sent. He added that a Royal Navy ship already in the area can also be deployed to help assess the damage to Beirut's port.

As stunned Lebanese rescuers counted the dead and combed rubble for signs of life a day after a huge explosion shattered swaths of Beirut, nations near and far pledged Wednesday that the country, already trapped in a deep economic crisis, would not be left alone.

The explosion at the capital's port that killed at least 100 and injured thousands, with shock waves smashing deep into the city, stunned the world. From Australia to Indonesia to Europe and the United States, countries readied to send in aid and search teams.