Flooding and massive mudslides caused by torrential rain have destroyed many roads and homes in parts of Libya.
Private and public property including buildings and entire neighbourhoods have been submerged under muddy water and vehicles swept away.
Hundreds of residents are still believed to be trapped in difficult-to-reach areas as rescuers and the situation in the worst-hit city of Derna in the east has been described as “catastrophic”.
Officials in Libya’s eastern government based in Benghazi are counting the cost of heavy flooding as a result of a storm.
Unverified local estimates of casualties put the number of dead upwards of several hundred.
Widespread flooding and mudslides caused by torrential rain have destroyed many roads and homes.
The worst-affected place is the port of Derna, much of which is under water after two dams and four bridges collapsed.
The prime minister of the unofficial eastern-based Libyan government, Oussama Hamad, said more than 2,000 were dead and thousands missing in Derna alone.
The storm later swept through Egypt.
Meanwhile, Libya is facing a “large-scale devastating disaster”, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) says.
The head of the IFRC delegation in Libya, Tamer Ramadan, says the challenges and needs in the country are way beyond what current efforts can do.
He says international support for the people in Libya is “strongly needed now”.
It comes as thousands of people are reported dead in the widespread heavy flooding, with the toll continuing to rise.
A minister in the eastern-based government told the Reuters news agency a quarter of the worst-hit city of Derna had disappeared and many buildings had collapsed and called the situation there “disastrous”.
Hichem Chkiouat said more than 1,000 bodies had now been recovered in the city.
Two of the city’s dams have been destroyed.
Libya’s western-based government in Tripoli has sent a plane with 14 tonnes of medical supplies, body bags and more than 80 doctors and paramedics.
