International aid continued to arrive this Saturday (16) in the flood-ravaged city of Derna, although hopes of finding survivors among the thousands of missing people have diminished six days after the disaster.

Storm Daniel, which hit the eastern Libyan city of 100,000 on Sunday night, caused the collapse of two dams and tidal wave-like flooding that destroyed buildings, vehicles and washed away thousands of people. people on your way.

Rubble from flooded buildings piled up after Mediterranean storm Daniel hit the eastern Libyan city of Derna last Thursday (14) – Photo: Abdullah Doma/AFP

Entire buildings were washed away and others were partially destroyed. The disaster punishes a country devastated by years of conflict and two rival governments.

Osman Abdeljalil, head of the eastern government’s health department, issued an updated death toll of 3,252 on Saturday night and denied a possible evacuation of the city.

The WHO (World Health Organization) reported that the bodies of 3,958 people had been identified and more than 9,000 were still missing, without specifying the source of this data.

Bodies in a bay in Libya

Rescuers from Malta, helping the Libyans with searches at sea, found hundreds of bodies in the bay, reports the Times of Malta. “There were probably 400 of them, but it’s hard to say,” Maltese team leader Natalino Bezzina told the newspaper, explaining that access to the bay was difficult due to strong winds.

The Libyan rescue team, in turn, indicated that they saw “about 600 bodies perhaps” on the coast of the Om el-Briket region, about 20 km from Derna, according to a video posted on social networks, without specifying whether this was these were the bodies found by the Maltese.

International mobilization continued intensively. At the Benghazi airport, a plane from the United Arab Emirates and another from Iran unloaded tons of humanitarian aid that will be transported to the disaster zone, located 300 km away.

The Italian Embassy reported the arrival of a ship with tents and blankets, as well as two helicopters and excavators, at the shores of Derna.

Tons of aid from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, including medicine, also arrived in the east of the country. Two French planes landed in the east to “set up a field hospital as close as possible to the affected population in Derna,” French Ambassador to Libya Mostafa Mihraje said.

WHO, in turn, reported the arrival of 29 tons of medical material in Benghazi from its global logistics center located in Dubai. “enough to help almost 250 thousand people”.

Chaotic situation

Humanitarian groups such as Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and Islamic Relief have warned there is a risk of disease spreading and difficulty getting aid to those who need it most in the coming days.

The situation is “chaotic,” making it difficult to count and identify victims, explained Manoelle Carton, the MSF team’s medical coordinator. “There are many volunteers on site from all over Libya and abroad. Coordination of assistance is urgent,” he insisted.

Cars are covered in mud and debris after devastating floods in the city of Derna, eastern Libya – Photo: AFP

The work of rescue teams is complicated by the political chaos that reigned in the country after the death of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

To speed up search efforts, the head of the government of eastern Libya, Osama Hamad, has decided that new restrictions will be applied in the disaster area starting today. “Only Libyan and foreign search teams and investigators will have access,” he said.

Having launched an investigation into the circumstances of the tragedy, Libyan Prosecutor General Al-Seddiq al-Sour said that cracks had appeared on the two dams that caused the disaster since 1998.

In 2010, the Turkish company began work after several years of delay, but work was suspended several months later due to the Libyan revolution in 2011 and never resumed.