DERNA, Libya: Libyan authorities sealed off an inundated city on Friday to allow search teams to dig through the mud and hollowed-out buildings for 10,000 people missing and feared dead after the official toll from flooding soared past 11,000. Authorities warned that disease and explosives shifted by the waters could take yet more lives.
Two dams collapsed in exceptionally heavy rains from Mediterranean storm Daniel early Monday, sending a wall of water several meters high gushing down a valley that cuts through the city of Derna.
The unusual flooding and Libya’s political chaos contributed to the enormous toll. The oil-rich state has been split since 2014 between rival governments in the east and west backed by various militia forces and international patrons.
The disaster has brought rare unity, as government agencies across Libya’s divide rushed to help the affected areas. But relief efforts have been slowed by the destruction after several bridges that connect the city were destroyed.
Heaps of twisted metal and flooded cars littered Derna’s streets, which are caked in a tan mud. Teams have buried bodies in mass graves outside the city and in nearby towns, Eastern Libya’s health minister, Othman Abduljaleel, said.
But officials worried that thousands of bodies were still hidden in the muck — or floating in the sea, where divers were sent to search.
The Libyan Red Crescent said as of Thursday that 11,300 people in Derna had died and another 10,100 were reported missing. The storm also killed about 170 people elsewhere in the country.
Officials have said that Libya’s political chaos has contributed to the loss of life.
