Tripoli, Sep 14,2023: The death toll from devastating floods that struck eastern Libya has risen to 5,500, with another 7,000 injured, a local official said on Wednesday.
Osama Ali, the spokesman for the Tripoli-based emergency services, said that no final death toll could be determined yet because bodies are still being recovered from the affected areas.
He said that about 10,000 people have been reported missing and that 30,000 people have been displaced by the floods, adding the flood-hit regions face a severe shortage of basic supplies.
Libya is racing to bury its dead as bodies pile up in the streets of Derna, the northern coastal city devastated by flooding after a torrential downpour smashed through two dams, washing homes into the sea.
The death toll rose to over 6,000 people as of Wednesday morning local time, according to Saadeddin Abdul Wakil, health ministry undersecretary of the Unity Government in Tripoli, one of two rival governments operating in the country.
Morgues are full in hospitals that remain out of service despite the desperate need to treat survivors of the disaster, according to staff. In Egypt, the government buried 87 Egyptian victims who died in Libya, according to the country’s emigration ministry.
Around 10,000 more are missing, potentially either swept out to sea or buried beneath rubble that’s strewn throughout the city once home to over 100,000 people, authorities say.
More than 30,000 people have been displaced by the flooding in Derna, the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Libya said Wednesday.
The significant damage to infrastructure in the region has made some stricken regions inaccessible to humanitarian groups. Only two out of the seven entry points to Derna now available.
Emergency teams are searching through piles of debris for survivors and bodies, as officials attempt to honor Islamic beliefs that the dead should receive burial rites within three days.
“The Martyrs’ committee (has been set up to) identify the missing people and to implement procedures for identifying and burial of in accordance with Sharia and legal laws and standards,” said Libya’s minister of state for cabinet affairs, Adel Juma.
The destruction caused by Storm Daniel has made a mammoth mission even harder for rescuers trying to clear roads and debris to find survivors.
The storm took out communications, frustrating rescue efforts and causing anxiety among family members outside Libya who are waiting for news of missing loved ones.
