At least 2,300 people were killed in Libya and thousands more were reported missing on Tuesday after catastrophic flash floods broke river dams and tore through an eastern coastal city, devastating entire neighbourhoods. “We confirm from our independent sources of information that the number of missing people is hitting 10,000 persons so far,” Ramadan said via video link from Tunisia, which borders Libya. Access to the eastern region is limited. Phone and online links have been largely severed, but the administration’s prime minister Oussama Hamad has reported “more than 2,000 dead and thousands missing” in Derna alone. Libya’s National Petroleum Company, which has its main fields and terminals in eastern Libya, declared “a state of maximum alert” and suspended flights between production sites where it said activity was drastically reduced.
