UN: Death toll from Libya floods climbs to 11,300 in Derna

The death toll from the catastrophic flooding in Libya's eastern city of Derna has climbed to 11,300, the United Nations said in an update.

Another 10,100 people are still missing in the devastated city, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said late on Saturday.

Elsewhere in eastern Libya outside Derna, the flooding took an additional 170 lives, the update said.

The update comes two days after the Libyan Red Crescent said the death toll soared beyond 11,000, with the number of missing people at 10,100.

After Storm Daniel hit the east of the country last week, two dams upstream from Derna burst, sending a wall of water into the wadi of dry riverbed that divides the port city of 100,000 people.

The devastation was apocalyptic.

Entire neighbourhoods and those who lived there were swept into the Mediterranean.

Disaster could have been prevented?

Questions are being asked as to why the disaster was not prevented, when cracks in the dams have been known about since 1998.

Prosecutor General Al Sediq al Sour has announced an investigation into the circumstances leading to the collapse.

Like much of Libya's crumbling infrastructure, the two dams that had been built to hold back water from Derna fell into disrepair during years of neglect, conflict and division in the country.

The United Nations has launched an appeal for more than $71 million to assist the hundreds of thousands of people in need.

"We don't know the extent of the problem," UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Friday, as he called for coordination between Libya's two rival administrations – the UN-backed, internationally recognised government in Tripoli, and one based in the disaster-hit east.

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Source: TRT