More than 3,000 people have died and many others remain unaccounted for after floods caused by Storm Daniel struck eastern Libya, an official said on Tuesday.
Speaking to Anadolu, Othman Abdul Jalil, health minister of the parliament-appointed government, said most of the victims were in the coastal city of Derna.
Other cities and towns affected by the weekend catastrophe include Benghazi, Bayda, Al Marj, and Soussa.
Jalil estimated the number of missing people in thousands, but refrained from giving an exact figure.
Earlier, a source within the Libyan Red Crescent told Anadolu that the death toll in affected regions reached 2,800, and that most people died from drowning or from the collapse of residential buildings.
More than 1,000 bodies have been recovered in the eastern Libyan city of Derna after it was hit by floods, a minister in the eastern administration said on Tuesday, adding that the final toll was expected to be very big.
“I returned from Derna. It is very disastrous. Bodies are lying everywhere – in the sea, in the valleys, under the buildings,” Hichem Chkiouat, minister of civil aviation and member of the emergency committee, told Reuters by phone.
“The number of bodies recovered in Derna is more 1,000,” he said. He expected the final toll would be “really, really big”. “I am not exaggerating when I say that 25% of the city has disappeared. Many, many buildings have collapsed.”.
Officials in the administration that runs the eastern part of the divided country said on Monday that at least 2,000 people had been killed by the floods, though it was not immediately clear what that estimate was based on.
Officials said thousands more were missing from the flood, which they said had swept away entire neighbourhoods after dams burst above 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.
The internationally recognised government in Tripoli does not control eastern areas.
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.
Other news agencies say that more than 2,000 people are feared dead and others still missing.
Source: Agencies
