THE death toll from Libya’s devastating flooding surpassed 5,000 today and was expected to rise further as authorities continued to retrieve floating bodies.
Thousands of people in the eastern city of Derna are still missing as officials try to get aid across to the tens of thousands who have become homeless after storm Daniel caused the deadly floods.
Derna, the worst hit city in the country, was cut off from the outside on Sunday night when the flash floods washed away most of the access roads, and aid workers only managed to reach the city today.
“Bodies are everywhere, inside houses, in the streets, at sea,” aid worker Emad al-Falah, from Benghazi said.
“Wherever you go, you find dead men, women, and children. Entire families were lost.”
International Committee of the Red Cross’s Libya delegation leader Yann Fridez described the human toll of the 23-foot high waves that hit the city as “enormous.”
Aid teams with some supplies managed to get in that way, but local emergency workers otherwise were relying on whatever equipment they already had on hand.
Ambulance and Emergency Centre spokesman Ossama Ali said that at least 5,100 deaths were recorded in Derna, along with about 100 others elsewhere in eastern Libya.
More than 7,000 people were injured in the city, most receiving treatment in field hospitals that authorities and aid agencies set up.
The number of deaths is likely to increase since search-and-rescue teams are still collecting bodies from the streets, buildings and the sea, he said.
At least 30,000 people in Derna have been displaced by the flooding, the United Nations migration agency said.
The damage is so extensive that the city is almost inaccessible for humanitarian aid workers, the International Organisation for Migration said.
Ahmed Abdalla, a survivor who joined the search-and-rescue effort, said they were putting bodies in the yard of a local hospital before taking them for burial in mass graves at the city’s sole intact cemetery.
Mohammed Derna, a teacher in the city, said he, his family and neighbours rushed to the roof of their apartment building during the flooding.
They watched people below, including women and children being washed away.
“They were screaming, help, help,” he said. “It was like a Hollywood horror movie.”
Libya is divided by rival governments, one in the east, the other in the west, and the result has been neglect of infrastructure in many areas.
