Libya floods kills 6,000, morgues overwhelmed

Libya is racing to bury its dead as bodies pile up in the streets of Derna, the northern coastal city devastated by flooding after a torrential downpour smashed through two dams, washing homes into the sea.

The death toll rose to over 6,000 people as of Wednesday morning local time, according to Saadeddin Abdul Wakil, health ministry undersecretary of the Unity Government in Tripoli, one of two rival governments operating in the country.

Morgues are full in hospitals that remain out of service despite the desperate need to treat survivors of the disaster, according to staff.

In Egypt, the government buried 87 Egyptian victims who died in Libya, according to the country’s emigration ministry.

Around 10,000 more are missing, potentially either swept out to sea or buried beneath rubble that’s strewn throughout the city once home to over 100,000 people, authorities say.