For the third day the search for thousands of missing persons continues today after the devastating floods in the Libyan city of Derna, where thousands are already confirmed dead, while the toll is expected to rise even further.

Flooding, caused by powerful storm Daniel that broke dams, has destroyed at least a quarter of this city on the Mediterranean coast, sweeping away buildings and people.

Officials in eastern Libya so far put the death toll at more than 5,000. The city’s hospital director told Reuters on Monday that 1,700 bodies had been counted in his own hospital and more than 500 were buried elsewhere in the city. Another doctor said more than 2,000 people are dead.

About 10,000 people are estimated to be missing and there are fears that many have been swept out to sea.

Reuters reporters who visited Derna, a city of about 125,000 people, on Tuesday saw scores of bodies on the floor in hospital corridors as people searched for missing relatives as more dead were brought in.

One resident, Mustafa Salem, said 30 members of his family had died so far.

Humanitarian convoys and trucks carrying excavators are heading towards Derna today.

The floods caused massive damage, with the water overturning and sweeping away cars and the streets of Derna littered with rubble, mud and debris.

According to sources, the two main dams on the small Wadi Derna river gave way between Sunday and Monday, causing huge waves of mud to destroy bridges and sweep away buildings, along with their occupants, on both banks of the river that flows into the Mediterranean. .

Satellite images of the city before and after the disaster show the riverbed that used to flow through Derna to be much wider now. Extensive damage, with buildings gone, can also be seen in other areas of the city.

“Dead bodies are lying everywhere: in the sea, in the valleys, under the buildings,” said Hishem Abu Skiwat, civil aviation minister of the eastern Libyan government. “I am not exaggerating when I say that 25% of the city has disappeared. Too many buildings collapsed”, he added.

Rescue operations are difficult as Libya is divided between two governments, one in the east and one in the west. The internationally recognized government of national unity is based in Tripoli.

Derna is located in eastern Libya, where a parallel government operates which is largely under the control of Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army.

Tamer Ramadan, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the death toll was “enormous”.

“We can confirm from our independent sources that the number of missing people reaches 10,000 so far,” he told reporters via video link from UN headquarters in Geneva.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said its teams had been mobilized to offer aid, while Turkey and other countries rushed to help Libya by providing search and rescue vehicles, lifeboats, generators and food.

This is the worst natural disaster that has ever hit Cyrenaica, the eastern region of Libya, after the great earthquake of 1963 in the city of Al Marj.