On Tuesday, the fourth day since Storm Daniel hit eastern Libya, relief response teams from Libya and the international community started to arrive in Derna: the coastal city that had been viciously hit by floods of rainwater from the Mediterranean storm.
Turkish, Qatari, Emirati, Egyptian, Algerian, Tunisian, Palestinian, and other international rescue and humanitarian as well as medical teams arrived in Derna and its vicinity starting from Tuesday morning, with Turkish teams reportedly finding a number of survivors.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs also said that emergency response teams had been mobilised to help on the ground.
Regarding the material assistance needed most in Derna, the member of the Relief Authority in the city, Islam Azzouz, said they needed rubber boats, body bags, food, blankets, and other humanitarian aids to alleviate the suffering of the families stranded in the midst of ravaged city.
“Derna needs mobile bridges to link east and west of the city after the bridges have collapsed. Body bags are essential because people are recovering bodies using blankets and burying them in mass graves.” Azzouz told Libya Alahrar TV.
Storm Daniel hit eastern coastal cities, especially Derna, Al-Bayda and Al-Marj, on Saturday. Two dams collapsed in Derna valley, washing away entire neighborhoods and killing entire families. The flood torrent obliterated around a quarter or the Mediterranean city of Derna.
The death toll of the calamity has not been verified yet as bodies are still surfacing and flowing out of the sea after they have been ebbed by tidewater because of the torrents from Storm Daniel.
The Interior Minister of the east-based government, Othman Abduljalil, told local media on Tuesday that over 5000 people died and about 10,000 others were reported missing in the wake of the cruel mother-nature disaster.
