According to authorities, more than 1,000 dead people were recovered in the massively affected city of Derna alone after the severe storm and devastating floods in the civil war-torn Libya. “The situation is very catastrophic. There are corpses everywhere – in the sea, in the valleys, under the buildings,” Hichem Chkiuat, the aviation minister of the government in power in the east, told the Reuters news agency by telephone on Tuesday.
He expects the final number of victims to be “very, very high.” “I’m not exaggerating when I say that 25 percent of the city has disappeared.” Many buildings collapsed.
According to the Libyan National Army, windows above the city were broken and entire districts and their residents were then washed into the sea. The authorities had already spoken of at least 2,000 deaths in the affected areas on Monday. According to the Red Cross, around 10,000 people are currently missing.
More information coming soon.
