Search Still On for Bodies in Derna a Week after Lethal Storm
(AWP) - Libyan search teams are doing their best to detect the bodies of victims from the deadly Storm Daniel more than one week after the worst natural disaster in Libya’s modern history.
As hopes are dwindling to find survivors, the rescue teams affiliated with the Criminal Investigation Department are intensifying efforts to recover the bodies as the Libyan authorities announced the burial of four-thousand people while thousands others are reportedly missing.
Col. Jalal Moussa of the Libyan Criminal Investigation Department said the search has been going on in the al-Bahr street area and al-Sahaba district, both were mostly damaged as they are located in the course of the flooding.
“We have a special signal for the criminal investigation department. Things are still underway to recover as many bodies as we can,” he added.
On Monday, the Libyan House of Representatives asked the government to announce statistics about the flood victims and missing persons on a daily basis.
The parliament also urged the government to “manage dwelling places for the families that became homeless or those whose houses became uninhabitable as a result of the flooding.”
It also announced it has started debating a draft law on setting up an agency for the rehabilitation of cities and areas damaged by the storm that had struck eastern Libya and left thousands killed or missing.
Othman Abdel-Jalil, the minister of health in the parliament-endorsed government, had criticized on Monday statements made by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) that claimed the flooding victims hit 11,300 people killed and 10,100 others missing in Derna alone, in addition to nearly 170 others killed in different areas of eastern Libya.