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Thousands are feared dead after the massive storm Daniel tore through eastern Libya, officials form the Benghazi administration said on Monday.
The eastern authority, which rivals a United Nations-backed government in Libya’s official capital Tripoli, said 2,000 people are feared dead and as many as 5,000 more people are missing.
Ahmed Mismari, a spokesperson for the Libyan National Army that controls eastern Libya, said Derna had been declared a disaster zone after a dam above the city broke, “sweeping whole neighbourhoods with their residents into the sea”.
What do we know so far?
Health authorities said a confirmed death toll from the weekend flooding stood at 61 as of late Monday. However, this tally did not take into account Derna, which had become inaccessible.
With the latest estimate at 150 dead, the head of the Red Crescent aid group in the region said the death toll for Derna was expected to hit 250.
Videos posted online by residents of the city showed major devastation, with entire residential areas erased.
Footage aired on Libyan television also showed people stranded on the roofs of their vehicles calling for help, and cars being washed away by the water.
Georgette Gagnon, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Libya, said dozens of villages and towns were “severely affected … with widespread flooding, damage to infrastructure, and loss of life.”
Calls for aid
The internationally recognized government in Tripoli has called for overseas aid.
“We call on brotherly and friendly countries and international organisations to provide assistance,” said the three-person Presidential Council.
Years of infrastructure neglect
Hamad is at the helm of a government that is not internationally recognized, but which rules in swaths of the country controlled by General Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA). The LNA was said to be involved in rescue operations.
Derna, a city formerly held by Islamic extremists amid the chaos that enveloped Libya for more than a decade, suffers from crumbling and inadequate infrastructure.
The country has been mired in violence since a NATO-supported uprising in 2011 toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi who was later killed.
zc, rc/jcg (AFP, dpa, Reuters)
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