INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
DERNA: Search teams combed streets, wrecked buildings and even the sea for bodies in a devastated eastern Libyan city on Wednesday, where
authorities said massive flooding had killed at least 5,100 people, with the toll expected to rise further
Authorities were still struggling to get aid to the Mediterranean coastal city of Derna after Sunday night's deluge washed away most access
Aid workers who managed to reach the city described devastation in its center, with thousands still missing and tens of thousands left
"Bodies are everywhere, inside houses, in the streets, at sea
Wherever you go, you find dead men, women, and children," Emad al-Falah, an aid worker from Benghazi, said over the phone from Derna
"Entire families were lost." Mediterranean storm Daniel caused deadly flooding in many towns of eastern Libya on Sunday, but the worst-hit
Two dams outside in the mountains above the city collapsed, sending floodwaters washing down the Wadi Derna river and through the city
center, sweeping away entire city blocks
Waves rose as high as 7 meters (23 feet), Yann Fridez, head of the delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Libya, told
Mohammed Derna, a teacher in the city, said he, his family and neighbors rushed to the roof of their apartment building, stunned at the
volume of water rushing by
It reached the second story of many buildings, he said
They watched people below, including women and children being washed away
"They were screaming, help, help," he said over the phone from a field hospital in Derna
"It was like a Hollywood horror movie." Derna lies on a narrow coastal plain on the Mediterranean Sea, under steep mountains running along
Only two roads from the south remain usable, and they involve a long, winding route through the mountains
Aid teams with some supplies managed to get in that way, while authorities in eastern Libya worked Wednesday to repair the faster coastal
Otherwise, local emergency workers were relying on whatever equipment they already had on hand
Search teams combed shattered apartment buildings and retrieved the dead floating offshore in the Mediterranean Sea, al-Falah said
Collapsed bridges the river split the city center, further hampering movement
Ossama Ali, a spokesman for the Ambulance and Emergency Center in eastern Libya, said at least 5,100 deaths were recorded in Derna, along
with around 100 others elsewhere in eastern Libya
More than 7,000 people were injured in the city, most receiving treatment in field hospitals that authorities and aid agencies set up, he
told The Associated Press by phone Wednesday
The number of deaths is likely to increase since teams are still collecting bodies from the streets, buildings and the sea, he said
At least 9,000 remain missing, but that number could drop as communications are restored, Ali said
At least 30,000 people in Derna were displaced by the flooding, the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration said, adding that the
city remained almost inaccessible for humanitarian aid workers
The startling devastation pointed to the storm's intensity, but also Libya's vulnerability
The country is divided by rival governments, one in the east, the other in the west, and the result has been neglect of infrastructure in
"This is a disaster in every sense of the word," a wailing survivor who lost 11 members of his family told a local television station as a
group of rescuers tried to calm him
The television station did not identify the survivor
Ahmed Abdalla, a survivor who joined the search and rescue effort, said they were putting bodies in the yard of a local hospital before
taking them for burial in mass graves at Derna's sole intact cemetery
"The situation is indescribable
Entire families dead in this disaster
Some were washed away to the sea," Abdalla said by phone from Derna
Bulldozers worked over the past two days to fix and clear roads to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid and heavy equipment
Derna is 250 kilometers (150 miles) east of Benghazi, where international aid started to arrive on Tuesday
Libya's neighbors, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia, as well as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, sent rescue teams and aid
President Joe Biden also said the United States is sending emergency funds to relief organizations and coordinating with the Libyan
authorities and the United Nations to provide additional support
Mohammed Abu-Lamousha, a spokesman for the eastern Libyan interior ministry, on Tuesday put the death tally in Derna at more than 5,300,
according to the state-run news agency
Dozens of others were reported dead in other towns in eastern Libya, he said
Authorities have transferred hundreds of bodies to morgues in nearby towns
More than 300, including 84 Egyptians, were brought to the morgue in the city of Tobruk, 169 kilometers (105 miles) east of Derna, the local
The victims' lists reflected how Libya, despite its turmoil, was always a magnet for workers from around the region because of its oil
More than 70 of Derna's dead all hailed from a single southern Egyptian village, el-Sharif
On Wednesday morning, hundreds attended a mass funeral in the village for 64 repatriated bodies
Rabei Hefny said his extended family lost 16 men in the flooding, 12 of whom were buried Wednesday
Another funeral for four others was held in a town in the northern Nile Delta
Among those killed in Libya was also the family of Saleh Sariyeh, a Palestinian originally from the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon
who had lived in Derna for decades
The 62-year-old, his wife and two daughters were all killed when their home in Derna was washed away, his nephew Mohammed Sariyeh told the
The four were buried in Derna
Because of ongoing gunbattles in Ein el-Hilweh, the family there could not hold a gathering to receive condolences from friends and
Derna, about 900 kilometers (560 miles) east of the capital, Tripoli, is controlled by the forces of powerful military commander Khalifa
Hifter, who is allied with the eastern Libyan government
The rival government in western Libya, based in Tripoli, is allied with other armed groups
Derna was once a hub for extremist groups in the years of chaos that followed the NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime
dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
