EMERGENCY workers uncovered hundreds of bodies in Libya’s eastern city of Derna today, as 10,000 people were reported still missing after flood waters broke through dams and smashed through the city.

At least 700 recovered bodies have been buried so far, the health minister for eastern Libya said. Derna’s ambulance authority put the current death toll at 2,300.

But the toll is likely to be far higher, said Libya envoy for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Tamer Ramadan. 

He told a United Nations briefing in Geneva via videoconference from Tunisia that at least 10,000 people were still missing.

The situation in Libya was “as devastating as the situation in Morocco,” Mr Ramadan said, referring to the deadly earthquake that hit near the city of Marrakesh on Friday night.

The destruction came to Derna and other parts of eastern Libya on Sunday night, when Mediterranean storm Daniel pounded the coast. 

Residents said that they heard loud explosions and realised that dams outside the city had collapsed, unleashing flash floods down Wadi Derna, a river running from the mountains through the city and into the sea.

One resident, Ahmed Abdalla, said that the wall of water sweeping through Derna “erased everything in its way.”

Videos posted online by residents showed large swathes of mud and wreckage where the raging waters had swept away the residential neighbourhoods on both banks of the river. 

Multi-storey apartment buildings that once were well back from the river had facades ripped away and concrete floors collapsed. 

Residents in the city were on their own in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, with authorities in eastern Libya saying that they were unable to reach Derna. 

Local emergency responders, including troops, government workers, volunteers and residents were digging through rubble to recover the dead. 

Footage showed dozens of bodies covered by blankets laid out in the yard of a hospital in Derna. 

Eastern Libya’s Health Minister Othman Abduljaleel said: “The tragedy is very significant, and beyond the capacity of Derna and the government.”

Authorities said that two dams on Wadi Derna had collapsed, underscoring the weakness of Libya’s infrastructure after more than a decade of chaos. 

The oil-rich nation remains divided between two rival administrations: one in the east and one in the west, each backed by different militias and foreign governments.

Derna is controlled by the forces of military commander Khalifa Hifter, based in Benghazi.