Maltese search and rescue officers working in Libya discovered a beach strewn with hundreds of dead bodies on Friday, as they worked to aid emergency rescue efforts in flood-stricken Derna.

The horrific discovery was made by a four-man team of Civil Protection Department officers which also found a group of seven bodies, including those of three children, inside a cave at sea.

CPD Chief Assistance Rescue Officer Natalino Bezzina, who is coordinating Malta’s rescue effort in Derna, spoke to Times of Malta over the phone on Friday evening and outlined the events of the day.

Derna was devastated when it was swept by a tsunami-sized flash flood that ripped through poorly maintained dams on Sunday night, killing at least 4,000 people.

Malta subsequently dispatched a 73-person rescue team made up of CPD officials and AFM soldiers to aid rescue efforts in the Libyan coastal city. 

The Maltese team arrived in Derna on Thursday morning. On Friday, a Home Affairs Ministry spokesperson said the rescue team had discovered 12 dead bodies so far.

That calculation appears to be wide off the mark.

Bezzina told Times of Malta that at around 6am on Friday, a small CPD team out to search the sea, with the assistance of drones. They were searching for bodies washed out at sea during the flood.

“The team came across a cave that was half submerged and, inside, they found seven bodies that included the bodies of three children,” he said. The rescue crew found another three bodies sometime later.

As they continued the search, they were joined by Libyan dinghies also searching for dead bodies or survivors. Then they came across a small bay filled with debris – and hundreds of dead bodies.

“[There were] probably about 400, but it difficult to say,” Bezzina said.

Accessing the bay was difficult due to Force 6 winds but the Maltese managed to recover 10 bodies and assisted in recovering a further 60,” he added.

Later in the day, the Maltese group recovered another body from land. They also saved the life of a Libyan rescuer who fell ill while diving.

“Our divers went to rescue him and rushed him to shore. He had no pulse but the medical team of the AFM and CPD assisted him and saved him. He was then rushed to the emergency area and was fine,” Bezzina said.

Rescue crews are handing recovered corpses over to Libyan authorities in body bags, he explained.

Asked about the morale amongst the Maltese team Bezzina said:  “Our work is all about saving lives. If we lose that from our role, we lose our soul.

“Recovering a body here in Libya is very different from doing so in Malta. Due to the situation, whenever we find a body there is lots of satisfaction. The locals come and hug and kiss us on both sides because it is important for them to find their people even for religious reasons – they want to bury them within 24 hours. Understanding and respecting their culture is very important and they appreciate our help,” he said.

Fear of disease

Aid organisations like Islamic Relief and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have warned that the upcoming period could see the spread of disease as well as grave difficulties in delivering aid to those most in need.

Islamic Relief warned of a "second humanitarian crisis" after the flood, pointing to the "growing risk of water-borne diseases and shortages of food, shelter and medicine".

"Thousands of people don't have anywhere to sleep and don't have food," said Salah Aboulgasem, the organisation's deputy director of partner development.

"In conditions like this, diseases can quickly spread as water systems are contaminated," he added. "The city smells like death. Almost everyone has lost someone they know."

MSF meanwhile said it was deploying teams to the east to assess water and sanitation.

"With this type of event we can really worry about water-related disease," said Manoelle Carton, MSF's medical coordinator in Derna, who described efforts to coordinate aid as "chaotic".

But the Red Cross and the World Health Organization pointed out that contrary to widespread belief, the bodies of victims of natural disasters rarely pose a health threat.

Appeals for aid

An AFP journalist in Derna said central neighbourhoods on either side of the river, which normally dries up at this time of year, looked as if a steam roller had passed through, uprooting trees and buildings and hurling vehicles onto the port's breakwaters.

Stephanie Williams, a US diplomat and former UN envoy to Libya, urged global mobilisation to coordinate aid efforts in the wake of the flood in a social media post.

She warned of the "predilection of Libya's predatory ruling class to use the pretext of 'sovereignty' and 'national ownership' to steer such a process on their own and in a self-interested manner".

In a Friday night news conference, Ahmed al-Mesmari, the spokesman for east-based military strongman Khalifa Haftar pointed to "enormous needs for reconstruction".

The United Nations launched an appeal for more than $71 million to assist hundreds of thousands in need and warned the "extent of the problem" remains unclear.

"We don't know the extent of the problem," UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said Friday in Geneva, as he called for coordination between Libya's two rival administrations -- the UN-backed, internationally recognised government in Tripoli, and one based in the disaster-hit east.

Teams from the Libyan Red Crescent are "still searching for possible survivors and clearing bodies from the rubble in the most damaged areas" of Derna, its spokesman Tawfik Shoukri told AFP.

Other teams were trying to deliver much-needed aid to families in the eastern part of the city, which had been spared the worst of the flooding but was cut off by road, he added.

He pointed to the "very high" level of destruction in the city, but refused to give figures for the number of victims.

While most fear the death toll will be much higher, Tamer Ramadan of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said there was still hope of finding survivors but also declined to give a figure.

The International Organization for Migration meanwhile said "over 38,640" people had been left homeless in eastern Libya, 30,000 of them in Derna alone.