China is willing to provide emergency humanitarian assistance in accordance with the needs of storm and flood victims in Libya and expresses its sympathies and concerns over the casualties and property losses in the country, said Xu Wei, spokesperson for the China International Development Cooperation Agency, on Thursday.

The catastrophic event, triggered by a Mediterranean storm that made landfall in eastern Libya on Sunday, has resulted in widespread flooding causing extensive damage to infrastructure along its path.

The death toll has risen to over 6,000 people as of Wednesday morning local time, according to Saadeddin Abdul Wakil, health ministry undersecretary of the Unity Government in Tripoli.

The number might jump further up as search and rescue operations continue into the week and survivors picked through the ruins in search of theirs loved ones.

Mayor of the worst-affected city of Derna Abdulmenam al-Ghaithi told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television that the estimated number of deaths in the city could reach between 18,000 to 20,000 based on the number of districts destroyed by the floods.

International aid

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday it's releasing $2 million from its emergency fund to support the victims in Libya.

"The health needs of the survivors are becoming more urgent," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "WHO is releasing $2 million from our emergency contingency fund to support our response."

The United Nations on Thursday appealed to donors for $71.4 million to respond to the needs of some 250,000 people impacted by the floods in Libya over the next three months, saying death tolls could rise without more help.

Aid has been sent or promised by numerous regional nations including Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Tunisia, Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates as well as the Palestinians. 

The United States has also pledged to help, and in Europe the aid effort has been joined by Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Italy and Romania. Climate experts have linked the disaster to the impacts of a heating planet combined with Libya's decaying infrastructure.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva on Thursday, the head of the World Meteorological Organization said that Libya's main challenge in managing the
aftermath of floods was that the governing was "not functioning normally" and casualties could have been avoided if the divided country had a functional weather service able to issue warnings.

The oil-rich country has been divided for years between rival administrations in the east and west. Each administration is backed by armed groups and militias.

(With input from Reuters and AFP)