At least 5,200 people have died in Libya and thousands more are feared dead after the devastating storm that hit the North African country three days ago, according to the interior ministry of eastern Libya’s administration.
Aid agencies have so far provided lower figures but warn the number of victims could sharply rise as thousands remain unaccounted.
Thousands of others were reported missing as search and rescue efforts were underway in Derna – the hardest hit city by the floods after two dams burst from Storm Daniel.
Earlier on Tuesday, a Red Cross official said that 10,000 people were missing after Storm Daniel made landfall, leading to widespread flooding and the collapse of two dams in Derna in the east of the country.
The storm has also hit Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece but Libya has been the most severely impacted in what one UN official has described as “a calamity of epic proportions.”
Gilles Carbonnier, vice president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, has said that the situation in eastern Libya “is extremely dire,” Al Jazeera reported.
“Hundreds and hundreds of people may have died, thousands more affected, people missing,” he said.
