Libya flooding: More than 5,300 feared dead after dams burst

More than 5,300 people are feared dead after devastating flooding struck Libya.

A quarter of the eastern city of Derna was wiped out by floodwaters after dams burst as Storm Daniel hit the country, with more than 1,500 bodies recovered so far.

There are fears the number of fatalities will rise further, with 10,000 people reported missing after entire neighbourhoods were washed away.

Disaster zone

Derna has been declared a disaster zone.

Tamer Ramadan, head of the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) in Libya, said: "We can confirm from our independent sources of information that the number of missing people is hitting 10,000 so far."

He added that conditions in Libya were "as devastating as the situation in Morocco", which has been recently hit by a powerful earthquake.

He later said that more than 40,000 people have been displaced.

The Red Cross secretary general and chief executive, Jagan Chapagain, said on Tuesday that three volunteers from its Libya chapter had died while trying to help families impacted by flooding.

Outside help was only just starting to reach Derna on Tuesday, more than 36 hours after the disaster struck.

'Bodies lying everywhere'

Hichem Abu Chkiouat, minister of civil aviation in the eastern administration, said: "I returned from Derna. It is very disastrous.

"Bodies are lying everywhere - in the sea, in the valleys, under the buildings."

Entire residential blocks were erased along Wadi Derna, a river that runs down from the mountains through the city centre.

Even multi-storey apartment buildings that stood well back from the river partially collapsed into the mud.

Cars lifted by the flood were left dumped on top of each other.

Othman Abduljaleel, eastern Libya's health minister, said Derna was inaccessible and bodies were scattered across it, Libya's state-run news agency reported.

"The situation was more significant and worse than we expected ... an international intervention is needed," he was quoted as saying.

'Never felt as frightened'

At Tripoli airport in northwest Libya, one woman broke down in tears as she found out most of her family were dead or missing.

Her brother-in-law, Walid Abdulati, said "we are not speaking about one or two people dead, but up to 10 members of each family dead".

Karim al Obaidi, a passenger on a plane from Tripoli to the east, said he has "never felt as frightened" and that he has lost contact with family.

People were searching for bodies and men in a rubber boat retrieved one from the sea, footage broadcast by Libyan TV station al Masar showed.

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"We have nothing to save people ... no machines ... we are asking for urgent help," said Khalifah Touil, an ambulance worker.

Derna, on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast, is bisected by a seasonal river that flows from highlands to the south, and it is normally protected from flooding by dams.

It is about 560 miles east of the Libyan capital Tripoli, and is controlled by the forces of powerful military commander Khalifa Hifter, who is allied with the east Libya government.

West Libya, including Tripoli, is controlled by armed groups connected to another administration.