Residents and rescue workers in the devastated Libyan city of Derna were struggling to cope with the thousands of corpses washing up or decaying under rubble, after a flood that smashed down buildings and swept people out to sea.
water swept down a usually dry riverbed, smashed two dams above the city and brought down whole buildings while families were asleep.
"We urge authorities in communities touched by tragedy to not rush forward with mass burials or mass cremations," Kazunobu Kojima, medical officer for biosafety and biosecurity in the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, said in the statement. The ICRC sent a cargo flight to Benghazi, eastern Libya's largest city, on Friday with 5,000 body bags. Other aid has also been coming in from abroad.
Some residents were frustrated that the country's fractured authorities were not acting faster to help.
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