Overturned cars litter the seafront in Derna, the eastern Libyan city hardest hit by devastating flooding when two dams burst following heavy rain.
The startling death and devastation wreaked by Mediterranean storm Daniel pointed to the storm’s intensity, but also the vulnerability of a nation torn apart by chaos for more than a decade.
By nightfall, more than 1,500 corpses had been retrieved from the wreckage of the city. They were buried in mass graves dug using bulldozers. A health official on Wednesday put the death toll in Derna at over 5,100.
As many as 10,000 people are missing and presumed lost as the storm surge swept entire communities out to sea.