Catastrophic storm floods have killed at least 2,300 people in the coastal city of Derna, Libyan emergency services said Tuesday, as local officials said around a quarter of the eastern city was wiped away when a dam burst.
More than 5,000 people remained missing while about 7,000 people were injured by the force of floodwaters that rushed down a normally dry river valley, said Osama Ali, spokesman for the Tripoli-based emergency services, which has had a team in Derna since Monday.
The final toll is likely to be far higher, in the thousands, said Tamer Ramadan, Libya envoy for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. He told a UN briefing in Geneva via videoconference from Tunisia that at least 10,000 people were still missing.
The situation in Libya was “as devastating as the situation in Morocco”, Ramadan said, referring to the deadly earthquake that hit near the city of Marrakesh on Friday night.
"I returned from Derna. It is very disastrous. Bodies are lying everywhere – in the sea, in the valleys, under the buildings," Hichem Chkiouat, a Libyan minister of civil aviation and member of the emergency committee, told Reuters by phone.
"I am not exaggerating when I say that 25% of the city has disappeared. Many, many buildings have collapsed," he added.
A Reuters journalist on the way to Derna saw vehicles overturned on the edges of roads, trees knocked down and abandoned, flooded houses. Convoys of aid and assistance were heading towards the city.
A video shared on Facebook, which Reuters could not independently verify, appeared to show dozens of bodies covered in blankets on the pavements in Derna.
Libya is politically divided between east and west and public services have crumbled since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising that prompted years of conflict.
After pummelling Greece last week, Storm Daniel swept in over the Mediterranean on Sunday, swamping roads and destroying buildings in Derna, and hitting other settlements along the coast, including Libya's second biggest city of Benghazi.
The internationally recognised government in Tripoli does not control eastern areas but has dispatched aid to Derna, with at least one relief flight leaving from the western city of Misrata on Tuesday, a Reuters journalist on the plane said.
The emergency medical supply plane is carrying 14 tons of supplies, medications, equipment, body bags and 87 medical and paramedical personnel, headed to Benghazi, the head of Libya's Government of National Unity Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
"The news about the severe flooding in Libya is dismaying. Many dead and injured are expected, especially in the east," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz posted on X, saying the country was ready to help.
Egypt, Qatar, Iran and Italy were among the countries that said they were ready to send aid. The United States also said it was coordinating with UN partners and Libyan authorities on how to assist relief efforts.
The former UN acting envoy to Libya, Stephanie Williams, urged quick foreign aid, saying the disaster "requires an urgent ramp up in international and regional assistance" in a post on X.
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters, AFP)
