Searchers look for more than 10,000 missing in flooded Libyan city where death toll has eclipsed 11,000
LA TimesPeople look for survivors of the flood that devastated Derna, Libya, this week. “There is an enormous need for coordination.” Teams have buried bodies in mass graves outside the city and in nearby towns, Eastern Libya’s health minister, Othman Abduljaleel, said. Bodies “are littering the streets, washing back up on shore and buried under collapsed buildings and debris,” said Bilal Sablouh, regional forensics manager for Africa at the International Committee of the Red Cross. Carton said later Friday that most of the dead had been cleared from the streets in the areas of the city the Doctors Without Borders team visited, but there were other grim signs, including that one of the three medical centers they went to was out of service “because almost all of the medical staff died.” Thousands of people displaced by the flooding are staying in shelters or with friends or relatives, she said. After the floods, she said, explosive devices may have been swept to “new, undetected areas.” The Libyan Red Crescent said as of Thursday that 11,300 people in Derna had died and 10,100 were reported missing.