Libyan city devastated by ‘tsunami’ flood buries more than 2,000 dead in mass graves

Thousands of people killed in a devastating flood in Libya have been buried in mass graves.

At least 2,300 are reported to have died in the tragedy that swept through Derna on Sunday, with 10,000 people feared to be missing.

The flood was caused by a powerful storm that burst dams nearby, unleashing a torrent of water that devastated a quarter or more of the Mediterranean city.

Both buildings and their residents have been washed away in the floods.

A hospital director in the city said 1,700 bodies had been counted at his hospital, and that 500 more had been buried in another part of the city.

Ambulances carrying bodies to the mass graves (Picture: REUTERS)

Mass graves are being created across the city to bury those who have died (Picture: REUTERS)

Some 10,000 people are estimated to be missing, with many believed to have been swept out to sea.

Mohammed Qamaty, a volunteer in Derna, said rescue workers were still searching for victims.

He said: ‘We call on all the young Libyans, anyone who has a degree or any medical affiliation to please come and help us.

‘We have a shortage in nurses, we need help.’

Videos of the aftermath show water gushing through the port city’s remaining tower blocks and overturned cars, and later, bodies lined up on sidewalks covered with blankets, collected for burial.

Residents say the only indication of danger was the loud sound of the dams cracking, with no warning system or evacuation plan.

Many bodies have been laid out on the ground in hospital corridors and people are still trying to identify missing relatives as more dead were brought in, it was reported.

The dam south of Derma broke its banks due to heavy rain (Picture: via REUTERS)

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Around 2,000 people are said to have been buried in mass graves in Derna (Picture: REUTERS)

The floods have ripped through the city with thousands of people feared dead (Picture: Getty)

One Derna resident, Mustafa Salem, said he has so far lost 30 members of his family.

Aid convoys and trucks carrying bulldozers were headed towards the city today.

The flood unleashed enormous destruction, flipping and mangling cars and leaving Derna’s streets covered in rubble, mud and debris.

Satellite photographs of the city from before and after the disaster show that what had been a relatively narrow waterway through the city centre was now several times wider, with all the buildings that had run along it gone.

Extensive damage, with buildings missing, is also clearly visible in other parts of the city where flood waters broke out from the waterway.

Soussa, Al-Marj and Misrata were also affected by Sunday’s storm.

Rescue operations are complicated by Libya being politically fractured.

The entire dam collapsed (Picture: via REUTERS)

Roads and buildings have been seriously damaged (Picture: REUTERS)

The internationally recognised Government of National Unity (GNU) is based in Tripoli, in the west. Derna is in an eastern area where a parallel administration operates, and where control is wielded by commander Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army.

Libya’s Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, head of the Tripoli-based government, said on Tuesday the floods were an unprecedented catastrophe. Libya’s Presidential Council head Mohammed al-Menfi has called for national unity.

Derna, about 250km east of Benghazi along the coast, is surrounded by the nearby hills of the fertile Jabal Akhdar region.

The city was once where militants from the Islamic State group built a presence in Libya, after Gaddafi’s fall.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said emergency response teams had been mobilised to help on the ground. Governments including Qatar and Turkey have rushed aid to Libya.

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