Libya flooding death toll tops 1,000, with as many as 10,000 still missing, as bodies found in Derna

Cairo — Rescue teams in eastern Libya have retrieved the bodies of more than 1,000 victims from the rubble in a coastal city that has been inundated by devastating floods, an official said Tuesday after visiting the devastated area. Authorities have estimated that as many as 2,000 people are believed to have been killed in the city of Derna alone from flooding brought by Mediterranean Storm Daniel.

A Red Cross and Red Crescent official said the number of missing people after the deadly floods across Libya had reached 10,000 on Tuesday.  

"I returned from Derna. It is very disastrous. Bodies are lying everywhere — in the sea, in the valleys, under the buildings," the Reuters news agency quoted Hichem Chkiouat, minister of civil aviation and a member of the emergency committee for the administration in eastern Libya, as saying in a phone interview.