Rescuers and relatives sit in front of the collapsed buildings after the recent flooding caused by Mediterranean storm Daniel, in Derna, Libya.
| Photo Credit: AP

Abdel-Hamid al-Hassadi survived the devastating flooding in eastern Libya, but he lost some 90 people from his extended family.

The 23-year-old law graduate rushed upstairs along with his mother and his elder brother, as heavy rains lashed the city of Derna on the evening of September 10. Soon, torrents of water were washing away buildings next to them.

“We witnessed the magnitude of the catastrophe,” Mr. al-Hassadi said in a phone interview, referring to the massive flooding that engulfed his city. “We have seen our neighbours’ dead bodies washing away in the floods.”

Heavy rains from Mediterranean storm Daniel caused the collapse of the two dams that spanned the narrow valley that divides the city. That sent a wall of water several metres high through its heart.

Ten days after the disaster, Mr. Hassadi and thousands of others remain in Derna, most of them waiting for a word about relatives and loved ones. For Mr. Hassadi, 290 relatives are still missing.

“The floods inundated as much as a quarter of the city,” officials say. Thousands of people were killed, with many dead bodies still under the rubble or at sea, according to search teams. Government officials and aid agencies have given varied death tolls.

The World Health Organization says a total of 3,958 deaths have been registered in hospitals, but a previous death toll given by the head of Libya’s Red Crescent said at least 11,300 were killed. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says at least 9,000 people are still missing.

Bashir Omar, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said the fatalities are in the thousands, but he didn’t give a specific toll for the number of retrieved bodies, since there are many groups involved in the recovery effort.

Many Derna residents, including women and children, are spending all their time at collection points of bodies. They are desperate to know who is inside body bags carried by ambulances. Inside a school in the western part of the city, authorities posted photos of the retrieved bodies.

Anas Aweis, a 24-year-old resident, lost two brothers and is still searching for his father and four cousins. He went to the Ummul Qura school in the Sheiha neighbourhood to inspect the exhibited photos.

“It’s chaos,” he said after spending two hours waiting in lines. “We want to know where they buried them if they died.”

The floods have displaced at least 40,000 people in eastern Libya, including 30,000 in Derna, according to the U.N.’s migration agency. Many have moved to other cities across Libya, hosted by local communities or sheltered in schools. There are risks to staying, including potential infection by waterborne diseases.

Rana Ksaifi, assistant chief of mission in Libya for the U.N.’s refugee agency, said the floods have left “unfathomable levels of destruction,” and triggered new waves of displacement in the already conflict-stricken nation.

The houseplants on the rooftop of Abdul Salam Anwisi’s building survived the waters that reached up to his 4th-floor apartment. Anwisi’s and a few other families rode out the deluge on the roof, which overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. They thought they wouldn’t live to see daylight. Now, as he sifts through the water-damaged debris of his home, it’s unclear what comes next. “God predetermined and he did what he wanted,” he said.

Others across the country are calling for Libya’s leaders to be taken to task. Hundreds of angry protesters gathered on Monday outside Derna’s main mosque, criticising the government’s lack of preparation and response. They lashed out at the political class that controls the oil-rich nation since the ouster and killing of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Mr. Hassadi, the law graduate, blamed local authorities for giving conflicting warnings to residents, leaving many defenceless. They asked residents to evacuate areas along the Mediterranean coast, but at the same time, they imposed a curfew, preventing people from leaving their homes. “It was a mistake to impose a curfew,” he said.

The dams, Abu Mansour and Derna, were built by a Yugoslav construction company in the 1970s. They were meant to protect the city against heavy flooding, but years of no maintenance meant they were unable to keep the exceptional influx of water at bay.

Many Libyans are now calling for an international investigation and supervision of aid funds. “All are corrupt here … without exception,” said rights activist Tarik Lamloum.

Rescuers and relatives of victims set up tents in front of collapsed buildings in Derna, Libya, Monday, Sept. 18, 2023. Some 11,300 people died when two dams collapsed during Mediterranean storm Daniel last week sending a wall of water gushing through the city, according to the Red Crescent aid group. A further 10,000 people are missing, and presumed dead.
| Photo Credit: AP

More than 11,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands are missing following the catastrophic collapse of two dams in the eastern Libyan city of Derna. The dam collapse came after an extreme storm, Storm Daniel, slammed into the north African country. The Conversation Africa’s Moina Spooner asked water resources and engineering expert Nadhir Al-Ansari, who has researched the design and safety of dams, to provide insights into the disaster.

Also Read | Libya investigates dams’ collapse after flood killed over 11,000

Infographics | Mapping Libya’s flood damage

Also Read | Libya’s flood-ravaged Derna struggles to cope with thousands of corpses

Derna, Libya:

“I lost my daughter. Her mother is convinced that she is still alive. I am convinced that she is dead,” says Ahmed Ashour, 62. “The girl left me with a 3-month-old baby.”

A week after the flood that swept the centre of the city of Derna into the sea, families are still coping with the unbearable losses of their dead – and haunted by the unknown fates of the missing.

Ashour’s eldest sister is also gone, and her daughter too.

“When we saw what happened to other people, we can accept anything that happened to us,” she said.

The centre of Derna is a wasteland, with stray dogs standing listlessly on muddy mounds where buildings once stood. Other buildings still somehow stand precariously above bottom floors that were mostly washed away. The legs of a store mannequin in dusty trousers stick out of the rubble in a ruined shop-front.

Dams above the city burst in a storm a week ago, sending a huge torrent down a seasonal riverbed that runs through the centre of the city of 120,000 people.

Thousands are dead and thousands more missing. Officials using different methodologies have given widely varying figures of the tolls so far; the mayor estimates more than 20,000 people were lost. The World Health Organization has confirmed 3,922 deaths.

“Hopes of finding survivors are fading, but we will continue efforts to search for any possible survivor,” Othman Abduljaleel, health minister in the administration that controls eastern Libya, told Reuters by phone.

“Now efforts are focused on rescuing anyone and recovering bodies from under the rubble, especially at sea, with the participation of many divers and specialized rescue teams from countries.”

Failed State

The roads into Derna were clogged on Monday with ambulances and trucks carrying in food, water, diapers, mattresses and other supplies.

Western countries and regional states have sent teams of rescue workers and mobile hospitals. Five Greek rescue workers, including three members of the armed forces, were killed in a car crash on Sunday.

The recovery effort has been hampered by chaos in a nation that has been a failed state since a NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Derna is in the east, beyond the control of an internationally recognised government in the west, and until 2019 was held by a succession of terrorist groups including branches of al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Residents say the threat to the city from the crumbling dams above it had been widely known, with projects to repair the dams stalled for more than a decade. They also blame authorities for failing to evacuate residents in time.

The biggest threat to survivors may now come from contaminated water supplies.

“The flooding crisis has left thousands of people in the Derna region without access to clean and safe drinking water, posing an imminent threat to their health and well-being,” the International Rescue Committee charity said.

“Contaminated water can lead to the spread of waterborne diseases, putting vulnerable populations, especially women and children, at increased risk.”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

The death count from catastrophic flooding in Libya’s eastern city of Derna has climbed to 11,300, the United Nations said in an update on Saturday, citing the Libyan Red Crescent.

Another 10,100 people are still missing in the devastated city, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said, using Red Crescent figures.

Elsewhere in eastern Libya outside Derna, the flooding took an additional 170 lives, the update said.

“These figures are expected to rise as search-and-rescue crews work tirelessly to find survivors,” the UN update said.

Nearly a week after Storm Daniel hit northeastern Libya, “the humanitarian situation remains particularly grim in Derna,” the update said.

Severe drinking water problems have gripped the city, and at least 55 children were poisoned from drinking polluted water, it said.

In surrounding areas, most of which have seen years of armed conflict, the UN warned of the dangers of landmines shifting from floodwaters, threatening civilians who enter on foot.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former president Sonia Gandhi, and party senior leaders being welcomed on their arrival for the newly constituted Congress Working Committee (CWC) in Hyderabad on Saturday, September 16, 2023.
| Photo Credit: NAGARA GOPAL

Congress Working Committee resolves to make INDIA bloc an ideological and electoral success

The newly constituted Congress Working Committee (CWC), at its first meeting in Hyderabad on September 16, welcomed the “continuing consolidation” of Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) and resolved to make its “an ideological and electoral success”.

Rajya Sabha Chairman Dhankhar to hoist national flag at new Parliament building on September 17

Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar will hoist the national flag at the new Parliament building on September 17. The flag hoisting ceremony will take place a day before the five-day Parliament session beginning September 18 which may see parliamentary proceedings shift from the old to the adjacent new building.

Government shelves socio-economic data of Persons with Disabilities as disability database goes online

The Union government is shelving whatever socio-economic data it had collected, while registering about 94 lakh Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) across the country for Unique Disability ID (UDID) cards in the last six years, The Hindu has learnt. The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is justifying the move by questioning the “quality” of the socio-economic data collected.

Congress calls for increasing existing upper limit of reservation

Noting the BJP’s stubborn refusal to conduct caste census in the country, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) that met on Saturday in Hyderabad called for increasing the existing upper limit of reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and OBCs.

Multiple routes proposed in India-Middle East-EU corridor, but multi-billion-dollar project comes with its share of challenges

Days after India, U.S., Saudi Arabia, UAE and other countries launched the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), officials said many of the details are still being ironed out, and multiple route options are being considered that will include ports like Haifa in Israel and Piraeus in Greece, The Hindu has learnt. Among the ports that could be connected on the west coast of India are Mundra (Gujarat), Kandla (Gujarat), and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (Navi Mumbai).

Gita Mehta, eminent writer, journalist and elder sister of Odisha CM, passes away

Gita Mehta, eminent writer, journalist and elder sister of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, passed away in New Delhi on Saturday. Mehta (80) had been ailing for quite some time. Daughter of legendary Biju Patnaik, Mehta was a war correspondent for a foreign television channel during 1971. She had extensively covered the creation of Bangladesh. Her documentary films on Bangladesh were then widely appreciated.

Army draws lessons from Ukraine war, revises its artillery requirements

Drawing lessons from the Ukraine war, the Indian Army has revised the profile of its Artillery regiment, with focus on a mix of mobility and augmented long-range firepower. The Army expects to achieve its target of converting the entire artillery to medium 155 mm gun systems by 2042, a defence source in the know said.

Libya investigates dams’ collapse after flood killed over 11,000

Libyan authorities have opened an investigation into the collapse of two dams that caused a devastating flood in a coastal city as rescue teams searched for bodies on September 16, nearly a week after the deluge killed more than 11,000 people.

Special U.N. summit, protests, week of talk turn up heat on fossil fuels and global warming

As a record-smashing and deadly hot summer draws to a close, the United Nations and the city that hosts it are focusing on climate change and the burning of coal, oil and natural gas that causes it. It features a special U.N. summit and a week of protests and talk-heavy events involving leaders from business, health, politics and the arts. Even a royal prince — William — is getting in on the action.

Neeraj Chopra finishes 2nd in Diamond League Final

Olympic and world champion javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra failed to defend his Diamond League champion’s title as he finished second with a modest performance of 83.80m here on Saturday.

Asia Cup 2023 Final: India and Sri Lanka to battle it out for continental supremacy

The curse of the Asia Cup has persisted. It’s not going to be India versus Pakistan, in sync with the tournament’s 39-year history. Nevertheless, with the World Cup less than three weeks away, there will be much more at stake than bragging about the continental supremacy when India take on Sri Lanka in what is expected to be a scintillating Sunday.

Damah, Libya:

Two dams that burst in a hurricane-strength storm, unleashing a wall of water that killed thousands in the Libyan port of Derna, had been cracked since 1998, an official said.

Prosecutor general Al-Seddik Al-Sour has announced an investigation into the circumstances leading to the collapse, culminating in the catastrophic flash flood that swept through the city on Sunday.

Like much of Libya’s crumbling infrastructure, the two dams that had been built to hold back water from Derna fell into disrepair during years of neglect, conflict and division in chaos-ridden Libya.

The North African country is currently ruled by two rival administrations that have battled for power since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011. A 2020 ceasefire has largely held.

On September 10, Storm Daniel made landfall in eastern Libya, triggering torrential rain in the hills above Derna.

Cracks

Abu Mansur dam, 13 kilometres (just over nine miles) from the city, whose reservoir held 22.5 million cubic metres (nearly 800 million cubic feet) of water, collapsed first.

The deluge then broke Al Bilad, the second dam, which had a capacity of 1.5 million cubic metres and is just a kilometre from the coastal city. The wall of water and debris swept through the normally dry riverbed or wadi that cuts through the city centre.

Both dams were constructed by a Yugoslav company in the 1970s, “not to collect water but to protect Derna from floods”, according to Sour. Before the dams were built, Derna was hit by a series of significant floods from the river in the mid-20th century.

According to the Libyan prosecutor, those responsible for managing dams in Libya had reported cracks in both of them as early as 1998.

Two years later, Libyan authorities hired an Italian engineering firm to assess the damage. It confirmed the cracks and recommended the construction of a third dam to protect the city, said Sour.

‘Procrastination’

In 2007, Kadhafi’s government entrusted repair work to a Turkish company.

But because of payment issues, the company did not commence the work until October 2010, and halted less than five months later after the revolution that led to Kadhafi’s downfall began.

Since then, a budget has been allocated every year to repair the two dams, but none of the successive governments since 2011 has undertaken the work, according to an official.

In a 2021 report from the Libyan audit bureau, officials criticised “procrastination” on resuming repair work on the two dams.

In November 2022, engineer and academic Abdel Wanis Ashour warned in a study that a “catastrophe” threatened Derna if the authorities did not carry out maintenance on the dams.

The warning went unheeded even though Libya boasts Africa’s richest oil reserves and is not lacking in resources.

World Meteorological Organization chief Petteri Taalas said many deaths could have been avoided if early warning and emergency management systems had functioned properly in the war-scarred country.

“They could have issued the warnings and the emergency management forces would have been able to carry out the evacuation of the people, and we could have avoided most of the human casualties,” he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Flash flooding in east Libya caused by Storm Daniel tore through the coastal city of Derna, leaving nearly 4,000 people dead, 10,000 missing and entire neighbourhoods in ruins.

This is what we know so far about the extreme weather event that hit war-torn Libya.

Dams burst

On Sunday afternoon, Storm Daniel made landfall on Libya’s east coast after earlier lashing Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey.

It touched Benghazi before veering towards the Jabal al-Akhdar district towns of Shahat, Al-Marj, Al-Bayda, Susa and Derna, devastating that city of 100,000 people.

Derna lies in a river wadi 900 kilometres (560 miles) east of the capital Tripoli.

Overnight, two dams on Wadi Derna burst, unleashing torrents of water that destroyed bridges and swept away entire neighbourhoods before spilling into the Mediterranean.

Roads that were already in a poor state were cut, and access to some affected areas became impossible.

Huge toll

Officials in the east of the divided country give different toll estimates, with one speaking of at least 3,840 dead.

However, most fear the figure will be far higher.

Tamer Ramadan of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Tuesday “the death toll is huge and might reach thousands”, with another 10,000 missing.

The International Organization for Migration on Wednesday said at least 30,000 people were displaced in Derna, as well as 3,000 in Al-Bayda, 1,000 in Al-Mkheley and 2,085 in Benghazi.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said late Thursday an estimated 884,000 people directly impacted by the storm and flash floods in five provinces need assistance.

Authorities mobilise

The authorities in Libya’s east and west, faced by the appalling human and material devastation caused by the floods, have mobilised, taking emergency measures to come to the aid of those stricken by the disaster.

Aid convoys from Tripolitania in the west have been sent to Derna.

The internationally recognised Tripoli government of Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah said it was sending two air ambulances and a helicopter, as well as rescuers, 87 doctors, canine search teams and workers to try to restore electricity.

International response

Relief missions have gathered pace with Turkey, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates among the first nations to rush aid to the disaster-hit country.

The United Nations has launched an appeal for more than $71 million to aid the hundreds of thousands in need.

The world body also called for a sea corridor to be established for emergency relief and evacuations.

The European Union said assistance from Germany, Romania and Finland had been dispatched including hospital tents and power generators, as well as food, water tanks and blankets.

The United States, Algeria, Qatar, Italy, France and Tunisia have all also offered assistance.

The United Arab Emirates sent two aid planes carrying 150 tonnes of food, relief and medical supplies.

Kuwait sent a plane with 40 tonnes of supplies, and Jordan sent a military aircraft loaded with food parcels, tents, blankets and mattresses.

Egypt’s armed forces chief of staff, an ally of east Libya military strongman Khalifa Haftar, flew to Benghazi on Tuesday aboard a plane loaded with relief supplies and personnel, reports said.

‘Medicane’

Storm Daniel gathered strength during an unusually hot summer and earlier lashed Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece, flooding vast areas and killing at least 27 people.

Climate experts say it bears the features of tropical cyclones and hurricanes known as “medicanes” which tend to form in the Mediterranean near the North African coast.

Medicanes form once or twice per year on average, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

While scientists generally avoid direct links between individual weather events and long-term global warming, Storm Daniel “is illustrative of the type of devastating flooding event we may expect increasingly in the future”, said Lizzie Kendon, a climate science professor at the University of Bristol.

The EU’s climate monitoring service Copernicus said rising global sea surface temperatures were driving record levels of heat across the globe, with 2023 likely to be the warmest in human history.

A global aid effort for Libya gathered pace on September 14 after a tsunami-sized flash flood killed at least 4,000 people, with thousands more missing
| Photo Credit: AFP

Emergency teams on Friday kept up their search for the thousands still posted as missing from the tsunami-sized flash flood that swept the Libyan port city of Derna, killing at least 4,000 people.

The enormous surge of water burst two upstream dams late Sunday and reduced Derna to an apocalyptic wasteland where entire city blocks and untold numbers of people were washed into the Mediterranean.

An AFP photographer said central neighbourhoods on either side of the river, which normally dries up at this time of year, looked as if a steam roller had passed through, uprooting trees and buildings and hurling vehicles onto the port’s breakwaters.

Also read: Libya flood survivors pick through ruins in search of missing thousands; death toll may breach 20,000

“Within seconds the water level suddenly rose,” recounted one injured survivor who said he was swept away with his mother in the late-night ordeal before they both managed to scramble into an empty building downstream.

“The water was rising with us until we got to the fourth floor, the water was up to the second floor,” the unidentified man said from his hospital bed, in testimony published by the Benghazi Medical Center.

“We could hear screams. From the window, I saw cars and bodies being carried away by the water. It lasted an hour or an hour and a half — but for us, it felt like a year.”

Hundreds of body bags now line Derna’s mud-caked streets, awaiting mass burials, as traumatised and grieving residents search mangled buildings for missing loved ones and bulldozers clear streets of debris and mountains of sand.

In one shattered home, a rescue team pumped out the water to reveal a woman’s lifeless arms still clutching her dead child, an AFP correspondent reported.

“This disaster was violent and brutal,” said Yann Fridez, the head of the Libya delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which had a team in Derna when the floodwaters hit.

“A wave seven metres (23 feet) high wiped out buildings and washed infrastructure into the sea. Now family members are missing, dead bodies are washing back up on shore and homes are destroyed.”

Abdelaziz Bousmya, who lives in the Chiha neighbourhood which was spared by the wall of water that devastated lower-lying districts, estimates that at least a tenth of the city’s population of 100,000 were killed.

“I lost my friends, my loved ones — they are all either buried under the mud or got swept out to sea by the floodwaters,” the 29-year-old said.

The floods were caused by hurricane-strength Storm Daniel, compounded by the poor infrastructure in Libya, which was plunged into turmoil after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

Libya is now divided between two rival authorities — the U.N.-backed, internationally recognised government in Tripoli, and an administration based in the disaster-hit east.

U.N. World Meteorological Organization chief Petteri Taalas said many deaths could have been avoided if early warning and emergency management systems had functioned properly in the war-scarred country.

With better coordination, “they could have issued the warnings and the emergency management forces would have been able to carry out the evacuation of the people, and we could have avoided most of the human casualties,” said Mr. Taalas.

Access to Derna remains severely hampered as roads and bridges have been destroyed and power and phone lines cut to wide areas, where at least 30,000 people are now homeless.

Climate experts have linked the disaster to the impacts of a heating planet, combined with Libya’s decaying infrastructure.

Storm Daniel gathered strength during an unusually hot summer and earlier lashed Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece, flooding vast areas and killing at least 27 people.

“Storm Daniel is yet another lethal reminder of the catastrophic impact that a changing climate can have on our world,” said U.N. rights commissioner Volker Turk.

Geneva, Switzerland:

The United Nations said Thursday that most of the thousands of deaths in Libya’s flood disaster could have been averted if early warning and emergency management systems had functioned properly.

With better functioning coordination in the crisis-wracked country, “they could have issued the warnings and the emergency management forces would have been able to carry out the evacuation of the people, and we could have avoided most of the human casualties,” Petteri Taalas, head of the UN’s World Meteorological Organization, told reporters in Geneva.

His comments came after a tsunami-sized flash flood hit eastern Libya at the weekend, killing at least 4,000 people, with thousands more missing and feared dead.

The enormous surge of water burst two upstream river dams and reduced the city of Derna to an apocalyptic wasteland where entire city blocks and untold numbers of people were washed into the Mediterranean Sea.

Taalas said lacking weather forecasting and dissemination and action on early warnings was a large contributor to the size of the disaster.

The years-long internal conflict wracking the country meant its meteorological “observing network has been very much destroyed, the IT systems have been destroyed”, he said.

“The flooding events came and there was no evacuation taking place, because there was not the proper early warning systems in place.”

If evacuations had taken place, the human toll would have been far lower, he said.

“Of course we cannot fully avoid economic losses, but we could have also minimised those losses by having proper services in place,” he said.

Libya’s National Meteorological Centre (NMC) did issue early warnings for the extreme weather coming 72 hours in advance and had notified governmental authorities by email, urging them to take preventative measures.

But WMO said it was “not clear whether (the warnings) were effectively disseminated”.

It said that while there had once been close cooperation between meteorological services and disaster management throughout Libya, this was no longer the case.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Libya:

Bodies were washing ashore in eastern Libya on Wednesday, swelling the death count from a storm that swept whole neighbourhoods out to sea, with thousands already confirmed dead and many thousands more still missing.

Swathes of the Mediterranean city of Derna were obliterated by the flood torrent, unleashed after rains from a powerful storm burst dams above the city on Sunday night. Whole multi-storey buildings were swept away with sleeping families inside.

The “sea is constantly dumping dozens of bodies”, Hichem Abu Chkiouat, minister of civil aviation in the administration that runs eastern Libya, told Reuters by phone.

“We have counted more than 5,300 dead so far, and the number is likely to increase significantly and may even double because the number of missing people is also thousands,” he added.

Tens of thousands of people had been made homeless, he said, appealing for international aid and adding that Libya did not have the experience to deal with the aftermath of such a disaster.

Officials say at least 10,000 people are feared missing or dead, though tolls of dead confirmed so far vary. Tariq Kharaz, a spokesperson for the eastern authorities, said 3,200 bodies had been recovered, and 1,100 of them had yet to be identified.

At a hospital in Derna on Tuesday, scores of bodies wrapped in blankets were laid out on the floor in corridors or outside on the pavement, for residents to try to identify them.

Mustafa Salem said no one had been found alive from his entire extended family which lived in homes close together near the river valley, opposite a mosque.

“People were asleep and no one was ready,” he told Reuters. “We lost 30 people so far, 30 members of the same family. We haven’t found anyone.”

The UN migration agency, the International Organization for Migration, said at least 30,000 people had been displaced in Derna.

“The most important thing for the search teams is that we need bags for the bodies,” Lutfi al-Misrati, the director of the search team, told Al Jazeera in a phone interview.

The devastation was clear from high points above Derna, where the densely populated city centre, built along a seasonal riverbed, was now a wide, flat crescent of earth with stretches of muddy water gleaming in the sun, all its building swept away.

While Reuters was on the road trying to return to the city on Wednesday, aid convoys and trucks carrying bulldozers could be seen heading in.

Satellite photographs of the city from before and after the disaster showed that what had been a narrow waterway through the city centre was now a wide scar, with all the buildings that had run along it gone. Buildings had also been swept away in other parts of the city.

Rescue operations are complicated by deep political fractures in the country of 7 million people that has lacked a strong central government and been at war on-and-off since a NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

An internationally recognised Government of National Unity (GNU) is based in Tripoli, in the west, while a parallel administration operates in the east, including Derna.

Libya’s Tripoli-based Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah called the floods an unprecedented catastrophe. Libya’s Presidential Council head Mohammed al-Menfi has called for national unity.

The bodies of dozens of Egyptian migrants who were among the victims of the storm in Libya arrived on Wednesday in Beni Suef, about 110km (68 miles) south of Cairo, Egyptian media reported.

Governments including Egypt, Qatar and Turkey have rushed aid to Libya. The Italian defence ministry said it was sending two military planes, carrying firefighters and other emergency rescue personnel, and a navy ship.

The United Arab Emirates has sent two aid planes carrying 150 tonnes of urgent food, relief and medical supplies to eastern Libya, the UAE’s state news agency WAM reported.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)