Residents of the devastated Libyan town of Derna desperately searched for missing relatives as rescuers called for more body bags, following a catastrophic flood that killed thousands of people and carried many into the sea.
Parts of the Mediterranean city were swept away by a torrent of water unleashed by a powerful storm that swept across a usually dry riverbed on Sunday night, causing dams above the city to burst. Multi-storey buildings collapsed, containing sleeping families.
Interior Ministry spokesman Lieutenant Tarek al-Kharraz told AFP news agency on Wednesday that 3,840 deaths have been registered in the Mediterranean city so far, including 3,190 who have already been buried. Among them were at least 400 foreigners, mainly from Sudan and Egypt.
Meanwhile, Hichem Abu Chkiouat, civil aviation minister in the government that runs eastern Libya, told Reuters that more than 5,300 deaths have been counted so far, and said the number was likely to increase significantly and could even double.
Derna Mayor Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television that the estimated number of deaths in the city could be between 18,000 and 20,000, based on the number of districts devastated by the flood.
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Derna resident Mahmud Abdulkarim told journalist Moutaz Ali in Tripoli that he lost his mother and brother after failing to evacuate from their first-floor apartment in time following the collapse of a dam.
‘She refused to leave her house…couldn’t imagine the situation would be terrible and told him so [Abdulkarim] it was just regular rain showers,” Ali said at an event organized for the Derwani community in Tripoli.
According to Abdulkarim, when his mother and brother decided to finally leave their apartment, they were swept away by the water as they took to the streets to flee.
Mabrooka Elmesmary, a journalist who managed to leave Derna on Tuesday, describes the city as a “disaster on a large scale”. “There is no water, no electricity, no petrol,” she told Al Jazeera. “The city has been shut down.”
Apartment buildings with families inside have been wiped out, she said. “There is a wave of displacement as people try to flee Derna, but many are trapped as many roads are blocked or gone,” Elmesmary said, adding that some families have sought shelter in schools.
Officials estimate the number of missing at 10,000. According to the UN aid agency OCHA, the number was at least 5,000.
The beach was strewn with clothes, toys, furniture, shoes and other belongings swept from homes by the deluge.
The streets were covered in deep mud and littered with uprooted trees and hundreds of wrecked cars, many of which lay on their sides or on their roofs. One car became stuck on the second-floor balcony of a gutted building.
The devastation is clearly visible from high points above Derna, where the densely populated city center, built along a seasonal riverbed, was now a wide, flat crescent of earth with patches of muddy water glistening in the sun. Buildings were swept away.
Rescue efforts
Rescue teams have arrived from Egypt, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Qatar, Derna Mayor al-Ghaithi said.
“We actually need teams specialized in body recovery,” he said. “I fear that the city will become infected with an epidemic because of the large number of bodies under the rubble and in the water.”
Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, speaking from Benghazi, said a field hospital was part of Qatar’s contribution to this “apparently growing international aid effort to Libya.”
“This is one of three Qatari military cargo planes expected to arrive in Benghazi today,” Stratford said.
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The aid also includes “medical equipment, medicine, food, tents,” Stratford said. “All help here will be brought to Derna as quickly as possible.”
In addition, Al Jazeera’s Malik Traina, reporting from Tripoli, said there has been an outpouring of support from across the country from Libyans themselves.
“We haven’t seen this kind of unity here in the country in years,” Traina said.
Large government convoys carrying equipment from western Libya have arrived in the east, he said. Volunteer convoys with assistance are also heading east.
“We’re also now seeing volunteers and people giving what they can: water, food, medicine, whatever supplies they can.”
Rescue operations are complicated by deep political rifts in the country of seven million, which has no strong central government and has been at war on and off since the NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
An internationally recognized Government of National Unity (GNU) is based in Tripoli, in the west, while a parallel government, including Derna, operates in the east.
Criticism has been leveled at local authorities in eastern Libya, including those in Derna. Some say locals were not notified to evacuate before the floodwaters rushed through the city.
However, Al-Ghaithi insisted on Wednesday that residents were informed ahead of the floods.
“We took all precautions and informed the residents of the areas that the disaster could have happened, we created an emergency room. The security forces have done their duty,” he said.
Additional reporting from Moutaz Ali in Tripoli