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.

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday the deadly Beirut explosion may have been an accident, after raising eyebrows earlier suggesting it was an attack.

Trump said it is still unclear what happened, although Lebanese officials have blamed the massive eruption on a poorly secured stockpile of highly volatile fertilizer ingredient ammonium nitrate.

Lebanon's diaspora, estimated at nearly three times the size of the tiny country's populatio of five million, has stepped up to provide assistance following the massive explosion that laid waste to the capital Beirut.

In Beirut's beloved bar districts, hundreds of young Lebanese ditched beers for brooms on Wednesday to sweep debris in the absence of a state-sponsored cleanup operation following a deadly blast.

Lebanon's flag was projected from Tel Aviv's city hall on Wednesday after the devastating Beirut blasts, in Israel's latest gesture towards a country with which it is technically at war.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday offered U.S. assistance after the massive Beirut explosion in a call with Prime Minister Hassan Diab.

Pompeo voiced "our steadfast commitment to assist the Lebanese people as they cope with the aftermath of this terrifying event," a State Department statement said.

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.

The U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon on Wednesday announced the postponement of its verdict in the Rafik Hariri case to August 18, saying the move comes "out of respect for the countless victims" of Tuesday's Beirut blast.

"The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is deeply saddened and shocked by the tragic events that shook Lebanon yesterday. The Tribunal expresses its solidarity with the Lebanese people in these difficult times," it said in a statement.