DERNA: A global aid effort for Libya gathered pace on Thursday after a tsunami-sized flash flood killed at least 4,000 people, with thousands more missing -- a death toll the UN blamed in part on the legacy of years of war and chaos.
The enormous surge of storm water burst two upstream river dams late on Sunday and reduced the city of Derna to an apocalyptic wasteland where entire city blocks and untold numbers of people were washed into the Mediterranean.
“Within seconds the water level suddenly rose,” recounted one injured survivor who said he was swept away with his mother in the late-night ordeal before both managed to cling onto and scramble into an empty building downstream.
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