More than 10,000 feared missing in Libya after devastating floods, hundreds confirmed dead

About a quarter of Libya's eastern city of Derna was wiped out after dams burst in a storm, the administration in the area said on Tuesday, and the Red Cross said 10,000 people were feared to be missing across the country after Storm Daniel barrelled across the Mediterranean.

At least 1,000 bodies had already been recovered in the city of Derna alone, and officials expected the death toll would be much higher.

A Reuters journalist on the way to Derna, a coastal city of around 125,000 people, saw vehicles overturned on the edges of roads, trees knocked down, and abandoned, flooded houses.

"I returned from Derna. It is very disastrous. Bodies are lying everywhere in the sea, in the valleys, under the buildings," Hichem Abu Chkiouat, minister of civil aviation and member of the emergency committee in the administration that controls the east, told Reuters by phone.

"The number of bodies recovered in Derna is more than 1,000," he said. "I am not exaggerating when I say that 25 per cent of the city has disappeared. Many, many buildings have collapsed."

Abu Chkiouat later told Al Jazeera that he expected the total number of dead across the country to reach more than 2,500, as the number of missing people was rising.

Other eastern cities, including Libya's second biggest city, Benghazi, were also hit by the storm.Tamer Ramadan, head of a delegation of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the death toll would be "huge."

"We can confirm from our independent sources of information that the number of missing people is hitting 10,000 so far," Ramadan told reporters in Geneva via video link from Tunisia.

Grieving, desperate relatives

At Tripoli airport in northwest Libya, a woman started to wail loudly as she received a call saying most of her family were dead or missing.

Karim al-Obaidi, a passenger on a plane from Tripoli to the east, said: "I have never felt as frightened as I do now I lost contact with all my family, friends and neighbours."

Derna is bisected by a seasonal river that flows from highlands to the south, and is normally protected from flooding by dams.

A video posted on social media showed remnants of a collapsed dam 11.5 kilometres upstream of the city where two river valleys converged, now surrounded by huge pools of mud-coloured water.

"There used to be a dam," a voice can be heard saying in the video. Reuters confirmed the location based on the images.

Another video shared on Facebook, which Reuters could not independently verify, appeared to show dozens of bodies covered in blankets on the pavement.

Footage broadcast by Libyan TV station al-Masar showed people searching for bodies and men in a rubber boat retrieving one from the sea.

"We have nothing to save people no machines ... we are asking for urgent help," said Khalifah Touil, an ambulance worker.

Foreign countries mobilize to send aid

Libya is politically divided between east and west and public services have crumbled since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising that prompted years of conflict.

The internationally recognized government in Tripoli does not control eastern areas but has dispatched aid to Derna, with at least one relief flight leaving from the western city of Misrata on Tuesday, a Reuters journalist on the plane said.

The Health Ministry in Tripoli said a plane carrying 14 tonnes of medical equipment, drugs and body bags, along with health-care workers,headed Tuesday to Benghazi. Other agencies across the country said they would send humanitarian aid to Derna.

Foreign governments also sent messages of support to Libya. Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Turkeyand the United Arab Emirates were among those that said they would send humanitarian assistance and teams to help with search and rescue efforts.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi convened his military commanders on Tuesday to arrange urgent assistance to its western neighbour. He said in televised comments that the military would deploy equipment and personnel in co-ordination with eastern Libyan forces to help affected communities.

The U.S. Embassy said Monday it was contacting the United Nations and Libyan authorities on how to deliver aid to the most affected areas.

Norway's Refugee Council said tens of thousands of people were displaced with no prospect of going back home.

"Our team in Libya is reporting a disastrous situation for some of the most impoverished communities along the north coast. Entire villages have been overwhelmed by the floods and the death toll continues to rise," it said.

In a research paper published last year, hydrologist Abdelwanees A. R. Ashoor of Libya's Omar Al-Mukhtar University said repeated flooding of the seasonal riverbed, or wadi, was a threat to Derna. He cited five floods since 1942, and called for immediate steps to ensure regular maintenance of the dams.

"If a huge flood happens, the result will be catastrophic for the people of the wadi and the city," the paper said.