UN agency International Organization for Migration has said that at least 34,000 people have been displaced by floods in Libya's flood-affected areas. The port city of Derna, where Storm Daniel caused two dams to burst, has been most impacted by the floods, BBC reported.
The death toll so far, has crossed 5,300. Shelter and non-food items are needed for the affected families, the International Organization for Migration said, adding that getting help wasn't easy as most roads in the region remain flooded, obstructed or destroyed.
"They say it's like doomsday," a Libyan journalist told BBC. Red Cross officials have said that at least 10,000 people are missing. Morgues are overwhelmed as the search continues for thousands more who are missing.
Bodies are piling up at cemeteries and very few survivors can identify them, Tariq al-Kharraz, another representative of the eastern government told the Guardian. He also said that entire neighbourhoods and bodies have been swept out to sea.
“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,” Libya’s minister of state for cabinet affairs, Adel Juma told CNN.
The storm has taken out communications, making the task of finding survivors even harder. Libya has been in crisis since 2011 when long-serving ruler Col Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed.
Gaddafi being killed led to the country being split into the internationally-recognised interim government in Tripoli (in the west), and the administration in Tobruk (in the east) in 2014. Citizens were appealing on social media for information about missing relatives; many of them were angry over the local authorities’ failure to warn that the dams were at risk of bursting.
